- 1974 (MCMLXXIV)
- Living
- British
- Alexander McQueen (2010–2023), Givenchy (2024–)
- •Kate Middleton’s wedding dress (2011)
- •The McQueen afterlife
- •Structural tailoring
- •Romantic industrial
Sarah Burton
The Manchester-born designer who succeeded Alexander McQueen after his 2010 death and sustained the house’s identity for thirteen years better than any widow-designer succession has before.
Sarah Burton was born in 1974 in Manchester. She studied at Central Saint Martins, graduated in 1997, and was hired by Alexander McQueen immediately after. She rose to head of womenswear by 2000. When McQueen killed himself in February 2010, Burton was promoted to creative director.
The Wedding Dress
On 29 April 2011, Catherine Middleton married Prince William at Westminster Abbey. The bridal dress — an ivory satin-gazar and lace gown with a long lace sleeve and a nine-foot train — was designed and constructed by Burton at the McQueen atelier. The dress remains among the ten most-photographed garments of the twenty-first century.
The House
Burton’s thirteen-year McQueen sustained the house’s commercial identity in the absence of its founder. The critical argument was not whether her collections measured against McQueen’s theatricality — they did not, and were not intended to — but whether they extended the house’s structural vocabulary. They did.
I am not McQueen. I was trained by him, and I work with what he taught me, but the hand is my own. — Sarah Burton
In September 2024 LVMH announced her appointment as creative director of Givenchy, succeeding Matthew Williams. Her debut collection was presented at Paris Fashion Week in October 2024.
