My work is always in some way directed by nature.
Lee Alexander McQueen
From ruby glass enclosed in metal like a heart to a black flacon crowned with gold feathers, Alexander McQueen (アレキサンダー マックイーン) fragrances give material and form a role in telling a story. Behind them stand a founder who moved from London tailoring into fashion design, his longtime collaborator and successor Sarah Burton, and the makers who translated ideas into scent.
Basic Information
- Founded: 1992
- Founder: Lee Alexander McQueen (1969–2010)
- Place of origin: London, United Kingdom
- First fragrance: Kingdom, 2003
- Official website: Alexander McQueen
The Founder and the Origins of the House
From East London to Savile Row
Born in London in 1969, McQueen grew up in Stratford in the city’s East End. His father drove a taxi. Leaving school at sixteen, he studied tailoring at Newham College and worked in his uncle’s pub. Apprenticeships at Anderson & Sheppard and Gieves & Hawkes followed. Cutting cloth quickly and precisely, then constructing it around the body, became a foundation for his work.
Everything I do is based on tailoring.
Lee Alexander McQueen
After working in theatrical costume, he joined the London designer Koji Tatsuno, then worked as Romeo Gigli’s assistant in Milan. He had experienced several kinds of clothing production before returning to study design.
A Teaching Application and the Founding of the Label
Back in London, McQueen applied to teach pattern cutting at Central Saint Martins. Instead, he was encouraged to join its MA programme. His 1992 graduate collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims, brought Victorian silhouettes and locks of his own hair sewn into linings into an intimate encounter with history.
Fashion editor Isabella Blow bought the entire collection. McQueen founded his own label that year. Money was scarce, and collaborators helped produce shows and music without payment. Looking back, he described collaboration as a necessity: people working in music, fashion and art needed one another to make things happen.
Learning at Givenchy and Building His Own Name
From 1996 to 2001, McQueen also designed for Givenchy. Its couture atelier taught him lightness and softness, extending the precise tailoring he had learned on Savile Row and widening his experiments with cut and construction.
Yet he had little influence over Givenchy’s advertising and marketing. Separating the clothes from their presentation was difficult for a designer intent on his own vision. Gucci Group acquired a controlling stake in his company in December 2000. As his own house developed, McQueen increasingly considered the clothes people would wear alongside the impact of a show.
Kingdom in 2003 and MyQueen in 2005
Kingdom, developed with YSL Beauté, marked the house’s entry into fragrance in spring 2003. Perfumer Jacques Cavallier created the scent. Cumin, rose and myrrh met a bottle of ruby glass partly enclosed in metal: both scent and object expressed a side of the house that extended beyond sweetness.
MyQueen followed in September 2005, pairing a violet-centred fragrance with a purple bottle whose curves drew on Art Nouveau. A different scent and sculptural language offered another interpretation of the woman imagined by the house.
Sarah Burton and the Return to Fragrance in 2016
McQueen died in 2010. Sarah Burton, who had worked alongside him for more than fourteen years, became creative director that May. Her tenure lasted until 2023. The next major chapter in the house’s fragrance history took shape under her direction.
A fragrance licensing agreement with P&G Prestige was announced in 2013, setting new scent development in motion. McQueen Parfum arrived in March 2016, developed and distributed by P&G Prestige. Three years of work included research in the botanical archives at Kew Gardens. It was Burton’s first fragrance for the house, opening a new chapter in a history that began with Kingdom. An Eau de Parfum also appeared that year.
In 2018, the eight fragrances of McQueen Collection expanded that world. Within the house’s fragrance partnership with Coty, several perfumers developed individual interpretations of flowers, woods and colour.
The House’s Approach to Fragrance
Kingdom: A Heart-Shaped Bottle and Intimate Packaging
Designer Patrick Veillet collaborated with McQueen on Kingdom’s heart-like bottle, combining red glass with a stainless-steel half shell. White paper, a red seal and a line from a poem by Jorie Graham gave the packaging the intimacy of a love letter.
We must be willing to live and love deeply.
Lee Alexander McQueen
His explanation connected the bottle and poem to opening one’s heart despite the possibility of pain. The heart shape carried an emotional purpose alongside its striking appearance.
MyQueen: Four Olfactory Levels
Anne Flipo and Dominique Ropion developed MyQueen around four olfactory levels rather than the conventional three. Violet and sweet almond led into orange blossom and heliotrope, then woody elements, before iris and vanilla completed the progression.
The purple bottle evoked a talisman, a crystal ball or a jewelled egg, enclosing the fragrance’s successive olfactory levels in a sculptural, curving form.
Powerful Flowers and a Bottle Intended to Endure
For McQueen Parfum, Burton considered flowers whose delicate appearance belied their powerful scent. Jasmine, tuberose and ylang-ylang formed the centre of a story about flowers after dark. Finding beauty in darkness connected that idea with her understanding of McQueen.
Timelessness was really important to me.
Sarah Burton
She researched bottles in the V&A archives, seeking an object that could sit among other bottles as though it had always been there. Heavy black glass, a textured cap and gold feathers made the flacon she designed a considered object in its own right.
Choosing Flowers and Colours, Composing with Embroidery in Mind
For McQueen Collection, olfactive artistic director Pierre Aulas connected Burton with the perfumers, who could choose a flower and a colour. The shared bottle appeared in eight colours.
Domitille Michalon Bertier’s Sacred Osmanthus paired apricot-like osmanthus with the smoky suggestion of Lapsang Souchong tea. Caroline Dumur’s Vetiver Moss began with emerald green and the house’s embroidery.
I was thinking of a McQueen embroidery, when I created this.
Caroline Dumur
Dumur imagined vetiver roots weaving through the composition with patchouli. The connection with fashion lay in a way of assembling materials, taking the work of embroidery as a prompt for fragrance construction.
References
- index — Alexander McQueen in conversation with Björk (2003): nature and early collaboration
- Alexander McQueen — About the House: founding and tailoring
- University of the Arts London — Alexander McQueen: biography, employment and graduate collection
- London Museum — Alexander McQueen: London’s fashion groundbreaker: upbringing, training and graduate work
- i-D — The New Kingdom (2002, republished 2015): his father’s occupation, Givenchy and his own house
- V&A — Alexander McQueen: an introduction: his tailoring statement and couture education
- Gucci Group — Form 6-K filed June 2003: Kingdom’s launch
- FashionUnited — Alexander McQueen launches first perfume: Kingdom (2003): perfumer credit
- The Moodie Davitt Report — Alexander McQueen launches first fragrance (2003): scent, bottle, packaging and McQueen’s statement
- PPR — Reference Document 2005: MyQueen’s launch and bottle
- Alexander McQueen / Kering — Announcement of the end of the collaboration with Sarah Burton (2023): tenure
- Global Cosmetic Industry — Alexander McQueen Enters the Fine Fragrance Business with P&G (2013): licensing agreement
- Cosmetics Business — Alexander McQueen expands into fragrance (2016): P&G Prestige and the relaunch
- Vogue — How the House of Alexander McQueen Distilled Its Dark Beauty Into a New Breakout Perfume (2016): development, Kew and Burton’s bottle design
- Dazed — Your first look at Alexander McQueen’s new fragrance ad (2016): March launch
- Kering — 2016 Annual Report: Parfum and Eau de Parfum
- Kering — 2018 Financial Document: Coty partnership and collection
- The Moodie Davitt Report — Yves Saint Laurent unveils new designer fragrances (2005): MyQueen’s composition and design
- Now Smell This — Alexander McQueen MyQueen (2005): perfumers and four olfactory levels
- British Vogue — McQueen’s Nose (2016): Burton on night flowers and timelessness
- Sandra’s Closet — McQueen’s Beyond-Amazing New Fragrance (2016): photographs courtesy of Alexander McQueen and the Parfum bottle
- 10 Magazine — Breathe in the new Alexander McQueen fragrances (2018): eight scents and bottle colours
- The Perfume Society — Alexander McQueen in bloom on Bond Street: Aulas and the perfumers’ accounts
