“Sickly Victorian Child, in a Glam Way”: Dara Reviews McQueen FW25

TUESDAY 12:23 PM MARCH 10, 2025 PARIS

This past weekend, McQueen FW25 told a feral fairytale in the botanical gardens of Paris. For Seán McGirr’s third women’s collection at the British fashion house, he went full “neo-dandy,” paying homage to those maximalist men of the 18th and 19th centuries. After the show, our fashion director Dara called us up to gush over the grotesqueness of it all. As she put it: “It’s nice to get wild again.”

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MEKALA RAJAGOPAL: She’s escaped Paris, but not before catching this McQueen show. How was it?

DARA: When you entered, there was a harpist playing, which was really cool. There were some really fab, iconic models walking, like Aymeline Valade and Kirsten Owen. Alex Consani did a very dramatic, theatrical walk in a black lace gown. And the girls were walking out of this mirrored video portal through this long, grand hallway situation. 

RAJAGOPAL: A portal through time, through universes. Did you make it backstage?

DARA: Yeah, I talked to Seán McGirr backstage. He was talking a lot about how the embroideries were meant to look like they were growing out of the body, as if the body and nature were intertwined. There were these tights that were embroidered to match the dresses.

RAJAGOPAL: Those were so weird and 3D.

DARA: Yeah, they had all these embellishments sewn onto them to give them this grotesque but beautiful texture. And there were a lot of ruffles and volume. I loved all the diaphanous dresses in the middle of the show in really amazing colors, like fuchsia and mint and lilac.

RAJAGOPAL: Blousy dresses with witchy toes.

DARA: The toes were really, really long. I was asking the girls backstage if they were hard to walk in, but they all said that it wasn’t. And then the giant heart-shaped fur bolero jackets were really fab.

RAJAGOPAL: They’re like angel wings.

DARA: And underneath, the dresses were really gorgeous. Some of them were halter turtleneck silhouettes with velvet inlays, and they were 1920s and ‘30s inspired, with these sections cut out so that it created this light movement.

RAJAGOPAL: It was very Victorian, again. The high necks and collar pieces. It’s such a thing this season.

DARA: Yeah, like a sickly Victorian child, in a glam way. There’s this young designer I follow, Paula Einfalt. She just graduated Central Saint Martins last year, and she designs really cool stuff on her own. She worked on some of the collars and ruffles, which is really cool, because she’s amazing at that stuff. There was also one really cool look that Angelina Kendall was in, which was a leather jacket with a really high neck and some belted straps across the front.

RAJAGOPAL: What about those masks?

DARA: Well, at first, we were like, “Is COVID back?” But Seán said that it was meant to be a continuation of what the tights were, like these things growing out of the face. 

RAJAGOPAL: I was living for the funeral hats, too. 

DARA: Seán said that Philip Treacy had made the hats. It’s really amazing to see him back at McQueen doing the headwear. I’m curious to see what other hat collaborations they do in the future because McQueen has a history of doing amazing headwear. 

RAJAGOPAL: And great hair.

DARA: I loved the beauty. The hair was really fucked up and ratty. 

RAJAGOPAL: It’s like a halo in the light.

DARA: Yeah, light picks up on that frizz in a way that’s really cool. It made some of those beautiful, soft dresses look really like they were caught in the wild in the forest or something, and it added this ravaged effect.

RAJAGOPAL: I’m so happy I keep seeing frizzy hair.

DARA: Yeah, I think we’re all tired of seeing the small, little clean look. It’s nice to get wild again. And this feels like a new idea of volume that’s not so much about making it pretty and prim in a ’60s way. It’s more grungy and sexy.

RAJAGOPAL: And the skull scarf is back! The 2010s are calling. 

DARA: Yeah, they used it for a blouse on a man. I’m really excited, because I wanted one so bad when I was a teenager and I never owned one. And now you can heal your inner child.

RAJAGOPAL: How were the afters?

DARA: It was really fun. It took place in this really gorgeous place that used to be a brothel or something. It had all these little rooms like a maze, and there were mirrors in all these different rooms that were scratched with people’s initials and names. I was told a story by Tom Guinness about how, back in the day, like the 1800s, powerful men would take their mistresses there. And they would give them diamonds as gifts. And to check the quality of the diamonds, the mistresses used to carve their names into mirrors with the diamonds. 

RAJAGOPAL: Very glamorous.