Contemporary Designer- Sarah Burton
Nature is the inspiration for many designers, including Sarah Burton, the Head Designer for Alexander McQueen. One of the latest examples include the Alexander McQueen’s A/W 2018 collection, the Butterfly Effect. This essay will discuss how nature inspired her and how she in turn inspires others.
Alexander McQueen 's long-time colleague Sarah Burton was tasked with continuing the great designer's legacy after his tragic death in 2010. Burton worked with McQueen for 14 years and subtly modified the aesthetic of the house while retaining its transgressive rules. This has seen Burton create apiculture-inspired collections and an episcopal blend of popes, saints and angels.
Burton grew up in Manchester then moved to Central St Martins to study in London. Burton completed a placement year at Alexander McQueen in 1996 on the recommendation of her mentor. After her graduation, she returned and, after just two years, in 2000, was appointed head of womenswear design.
Burton also oversees the artistic management and creation of all brand collections, including ready-to - wear and accessories for women and men, as well as the higher-end contemporary McQ range, which also consists of collections of women's, men's and accessories. She received global attention in April 2011 as the designer of HRH The Duchess of Cambridge's wedding dress, Catherine Middleton to HRH Prince William.
Alexander McQueen's The Butterfly Effect collection was one of the most awaited shows during Paris Fashion Week in 2018. Butterflies and butterflies, "Burton explained of her inspiration backstage," and heaven discovered rather than lost. Butterflies were of special interest to McQueen, the artist, and used to have a dramatic, theatrical impact.
Sarah Burton has a rather distant style, her capacity to distil the late designer's essence is touching and impressive.
Womanly skirts became trench coats and extreme outerwear, as she says an “expression of extreme femininity.”. In the hysteria of the macabre, the rigid body-contoured corsets, the gold-painted fox-skeleton wrap, the bondage bits, the kimono-style parachute, the antlered bridal gowns, Burton had no trouble adventuring with McQueen through all of these themes and ideas in order to create collections with him, and has continued to do so after his death, yet she's a different type of performer basically. It's hard to see her revealing the dark origins of McQueen's fetishist fascination with destruction. The gloom of Burton is more veiled, almost more shocking. From a place of relative personal hope and sunniness, it comes unbidden. Her hauntings are more romantic, and, considering the violence at the heart of nature, the fabrics she uses are increasingly distinct, more celebratory of lasting life and returning nature.
In 2000, Sarah was named head of the division for women's wear, and while in this role, she made dresses for Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lady Gaga, and Michelle Obama. In 2010, Sarah became the artistic head after Alexander McQueen 's death. The designer created Middleton's beautiful and elegant dress for her marriage to Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, in 2011. Burton designed a dress for Sara Buys' wife and model writer, Tom Parker Bowles. In addition, she also modelled a dress for Pippa Middleton, the sister of Kate 's wedding maid of honour. These are all prominent figures in the English social scene and as such are well known on the global scale, this means that individuals look up to them and try to emulate their style and as such she is subtle influencing the way people dress and the way fashion if viewed
In conclusion Sarah Burton is influenced by the beauty of the often times perceived macabre natural world around her, and in turn she influences the world around her, more specifically how individuals dress and the fashion world, now and how its perceived in the future, much like how the empire butterfly dress in the Butterfly Effect collection is now recognisable as Effie’s dress from Hunger Games Catching Fire.