Alexander McQueen to Stage First NYC Runway Show in Over 20 Years

Creative Director Sarah Burton will present the label’s Fall 2022 womenswear collection in the Big Apple, though the exact location of the runway show — a classic focal point in McQueen runway collections, from abandoned churches to car warehouses — is still under wraps.

The late designer and his eponymous label had a brief but legendary history with New York; McQueen’s debut there for Fall 1996 reimagined what a show at NYFW could be, and is largely viewed as one of the shows that launched him into global fame.

For this first collection shown in New York, McQueen transformed the abandoned Norfolk Synagogue in the Lower East Side into an eerily religious, evocative space to present Dante, which debuted at Christ Church in East London and was moved to New York to be re-shown weeks later, and is long considered to be one of the most transformative and experimental shows of McQueen’s career.

Unicorn antlers, crucifix masks, and bare buttocks enthralled the showgoers of ‘96 and cemented McQueen’s reputation, and later, looks from the collection would be featured in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s retrospective exhibition, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.

He returned for a second time in 1999 in one of the city’s piers, where he showed on a wet runway and afterwards dropped his pants to reveal his American flag boxers.

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