McQueen Autumn Winter 2025 Pre-Collection: Crystal Stencil Embroidery
Unearthing the intricate cutwork technique and its subversive tattoo origins.
The McQueen Autumn Winter 2025 Pre-collection explores the depths of London’s Soho, and the eclectic energy derived from its diversity of characters—writers, artists and transient sailors in the 1950s.
Taking inspiration from the fleeting shipmates, McQueen’s intricately rendered embroideries artfully trace the motifs of their sailor tattoos: roses, lilies and swallows. Each, in itself, carries deeper meaning.
A swallow tattoo marked the achievement of a sailor's first 5,000 nautical miles, a mark of survival at sea. The rose, a symbol of love and beauty, often represented a sailor's deep devotion to a loved one left behind. A lily was a hallmark of innocence.
Together, they form the basis of graphic, engineered artwork, brought to life with fine gunmetal sequin and bugle bead embroidery—glimmering like light on water.
This multidimensional embellishment echoes the stencilling techniques used in traditional tattoo artistry and references the craftsmanship and precise beauty of cutwork guipure lace—a technique used in archival McQueen collections such as Spring Summer 1999 ‘No.13’.
Details of McQueen Spring Summer 1999 ‘No.13’ Guipure lace.
Throughout the collection, playful motifs are outlined in a mix of silver crystals, framing negative space that reveals its wearer’s skin. It is clashed against a richly textured base of twisted bugle beads and light-refracting sequins.
