McQueen Spring Summer 2025 Show
École des Beaux-Arts, Paris
28th September 2024
VENUE
The École des Beaux-Arts, a centuries old crucible for the creative arts and the backdrop for the McQueen Spring Summer 2025 show. The French institution, established in 1648, has fostered generations of artists, architects and designers — those at the vanguard of culture, grounding their expression in traditional technique. Its global renown continues to draw students of design history and the visual arts, some of whom attended the show.
SET
The set was conceived by British Tony Award-winning artist Tom Scutt, in collaboration with Creative Director Seán McGirr. A meditation on liminal space, Scutt's installation played upon the inherent tensions between classicism and modernity, echoing the grandeur of the Beaux-Arts cut through with a contemporary presence.
Bathed in vaporous light, the set’s monolithic gateway gave way to a steel-plated path lined with crushed tiles — replicas of the Beaux-Arts' own, suggesting the path's excavation from beneath the institution's foundations.
MUSIC
Curated by Cyrus Goberville, the Head of Cultural Programs at Bourse de Commerce, the soundtrack was a sonic landscape spanning decades and genres — underground, explorative and experimental, produced by British artists.
“Love” written and performed by Andy Stott, courtesy of Modern Love. “Slow” written and performed by Florence Sinclair. “Screwface” by Brain Killers, courtesy of Kemet/3rd Party Records. “Ferch Gyda’r Llygaid du” written and performed by Tristwch Y Fenywod, released by Night School Records. “Lost in Music” performed by The Fall, written by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, published by Warner Chappell and Sony Music Publishing, courtesy of Cherry Red Records.
SHOW NOTES
Award-winning author Eimear McBride, known for her visceral and experimental explorations of Irish identity, sexuality and womanhood, lent her distinctive voice to McQueen's Spring Summer 2025 notes.
Renowned for A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, The Lesser Bohemians, Bohemians, Strange Hotel, and the newly-released The City Changes Its Face, the Irish author wrote an original piece inspired by the banshee, the folkloric figure central to the collection's narrative. The evocative work preceded the collection’s livestream with a recorded reading by McBride.
GUESTS
Attending the show were figures recognised for their distinctive expressions of style.
