Alexander McQueen Graduate Collection 1992: Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims

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by brownfashionagal

Every legend has a first chapter, and this is McQueen’s. In March 1992 he showed his MA graduate collection from Central Saint Martins, titled Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims. He was a tailor’s apprentice from the East End who had trained on Savile Row, and he chose a subject from his own streets.

The collection looked at the Ripper’s victims and at the Victorian London they lived in. The tailoring was already razor sharp. The best-known piece is a pink silk satin frock coat printed with thorns, its lining sewn with human hair. McQueen also stitched locks of his own hair into the labels, after the Victorian custom of giving hair as a love token. There was a black three-point origami frock coat and narrow high-waisted satin trousers.

In the audience sat the stylist Isabella Blow. She bought the whole collection for £5,000 and paid for it in weekly instalments. She became his champion and his friend, and nothing was the same for either of them after that.

The dark themes that would follow him through his career are all here: history, death, beauty and violence. So is the skill. It is rare for a student collection to matter this much.

Pictures courtesy of Vogue Runway

We do not own the rights to any of these images and they have been used in good faith. Every effort has been made to ensure that all images are used with proper credits. If you are the rightful owner of any image used on our site and wish to have it removed, please contact us at ayerhsmagazine@gmail.com and we will promptly remove it. We are a non-commercial, passion-driven, independent fashion blog and do not intend to infringe any copyright. Thank you for your understanding.