Alexander McQueen’s Pugilistic Chic

Any suggestion that times are other than tough was laughable after attending the latest menswear show from Alexander McQueen, a collection dedicated to Victorian roughnecks and backstreet fighters.

It felt like a casting for the Threepenny Opera Monday evening in Milan, where half the models carried shillelaghs and all them bovver’ boots, ready to mix it up with anyone who got in their way on the catwalk, done up like a dingy, backstreet in 19th century London.

Composed of a cast that included several professional boxers, and entitled McQueensberry, in a pun on the Marquis of Queensberry who first codified the rules of boxing, the show was a bare knuckle affair, where our posh toughs had hands wrapped in cotton the better to protect them landing knock out punches.

In terms of clothes, McQueen sent out slim-fit Edwardian suits in Harris Tweed and sturdy wools, with tapered six-pocket combat pants and four-button jackets. Shirts had tiny collars, a big trend here, and all the men wore boots, burnished at the toe, and another Milan must-have this season. Topcoats were cut short; the better for a pub brawl, and every model wore short hats, either mini brim Trilbies or more rakish Homburgs.

One lad even appeared in an S&M butcher’s outfit with leather apron, all the better to carve up a slattern, prostitute, in a grisly Jack the Ripper moment.

But in a curious display, too frequently the collection recalled not McQueen’s own oeuvre but that of Jean Paul Gaultier. Men wore four piece suits – even if the fourth item was just a stretch of chain mail – had absurdist wool skullcaps under their hats and several strutted around sporting codpieces, all classic Gaultier fetishes.

So, instead of Alexander McQueen maybe we should call this show, Jean Paul de Ripper?

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