This week, Marc Jacobs has raised a few eyebrows with his comments on couture calling the venerable art ‘archaic’, whilst Creative Director for Alexander McQueen, Sarah Burton reflects on her amazing year.
Marc Jacobs would consider working for Christian Dior in the future but has no plans to become the successor to John Galliano. The Louis Vuitton designer’s name has frequently been mentioned as a replacement for the sacked Galliano but says he loves working for Louis Vuitton and doesn’t see himself leaving in the near future. Marc said: “I am at Vuitton, and I am very happy there. I’ve been saying that for a long time. There have been on-and-off conversations about Dior. I don’t know; maybe someday in the future, maybe years from now, I may end up going someplace else, maybe Dior. But right now I am at Vuitton, and all that matters to me is that that’s where I am and I’m going to keep doing my thing.” Marc says he doesn’t need the challenge of moving to Dior and creating couture gowns because every season at Vuitton he tries to top what he has done before. He explained to vogue.co.uk: “The irony in all of this is that I don’t dream of doing anything else, or I didn’t. My greatest challenge is to do something better than we’ve done the season before. The idea of couture doesn’t hold that thing for me. It’s archaic – in my opinion. I mean, I am really interested in the craftsmanship behind couture. But I can explore all that in ready-to-wear. With couture, one dress each season is photographed by a couple of magazines; there’s no advertising; it reaches 20 customers. I don’t feel there is anything lacking in what we do. I get to work with these amazing craftsmen. Maybe not the same ateliers that would make a couture dress, but, again, we are not in a deficit for working with people who create beautiful things. I am not sure I ever looked at couture as this great opportunity.” Raf Simons is the latest name to emerge as the frontrunner for the head creative designer post at Dior.
Sarah Burton regards the Alexander McQueen team to be “like a family”. The designer – who was named as the label’s creative director last year following the tragic suicide death of its founder Alexander McQueen – feels “privileged” to be part of the brand, and carry on the creator’s passion in her day-to-day work. She said: “Every day, I love what I do and I think it’s a gift and privilege to love your job. The McQueen team is like family. “We are so passionate about what we do and it’s so important that we have established a couture-standard atelier in Britain.” Sarah – who created Duchess Catherine’s wedding dress when she married Prince William in April – feels “very lucky” to have worked with Alexander for 13 years, and she was delighted more than half a million people attended the ‘Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty’ exhibition in New York earlier this year to celebrate his work. She added to The Observer newspaper: “He was a visionary, an incredible man and I feel very lucky to be able to carry on his name – people have been incredibly supportive. “The huge audience at the Metropolitan exhibition really did show how many people his work had touched, and from all walks of life.” Last month, the 37-year-old designer – who also created the figure-hugging white bridesmaid dress Catherine’s sister Pippa Middleton wore for her sibling’s nuptials – capped off her 2011 in style when she was named top designer at Harper’s Bazaar Women of the Year awards. She explained: “It’s been an amazing year.”
