How the New MCQ is Rethinking the Face of Fashion
Creative community and tech for a more
responsible future.
The traditional fashion cycle as we know it is no more. Even prior to the current challenges of COVID-19, brands had long been rethinking their approaches to an oversaturated retail landscape and rigorous seasonal deliveries. Among the latest—and most radical—overhauls is the new face of MCQ.
Marrying the storied artistry and British heritage of its parent house, Alexander McQueen, MCQ boasts an innovative approach that includes blockchain, consumer-to-consumer trading and a constantly evolving cast of creative talents.
Dismantling the old business to build a new label, a creative collective for this new age, MCQ invites on-board a rotating cast of collaborators from the established to the emerging. Helmed not by a single creative director, this ethos offers collaborators maximum creative freedom to interpret collections (“Icons”) as they see fit. The Icon’s title and key graphics are the only jumping-off points, to be interpreted through the lens of chosen creatives. Among the first class of participants for the debut Icon of the brand’s first Cycle (season), Genesis II, are South London-based poet and musician James Massiah, singer/DJ Shygirl and color trend forecasting firm the Pantone Institute.
How does the new MCQ collection model, referred to in MCQ’s vocabulary as an Icon, speak to the modern lifestyle and the modern consumer?
The Icon is the collection title and graphic object set by MCQ and the collaborators. Each Icon tells a different story and is displayed on The Tag which is placed on the outside of each item. This system unlocks options to go beyond a seasonal model. It allows for flexibility, a broad scope of expression and crediting all the voices of our collaborators while being easily recognizable.
With tech as another major pillar of MCQ’s DNA, how did the idea come about to create the technology-integrated clothing tag, which also allows for the ability to trade MCQ pieces?
The MCQ approach on tech is that it’s not an added layer; it’s a robust tech architecture embodied within everything we are doing. It’s there to enhance the user experience and it also provides transparency–which was missing in the industry.
How did the MCQ team view integrating sustainable approaches with the brand in a way that felt natural?
We are trying to find better ways to do things like increasing the lifespan of each item via the technology that enables reselling on the MYMCQ platform, or designing the end-to-end packaging system to remove the current re-packing model. But we are not perfect yet and we don’t market MCQ as a “sustainable label.” To be responsible and to actively look for new ways to do things better comes naturally to us and our collaborators.
How would you describe MCQ?
Part of the house of Alexander McQueen, MCQ is the first of its kind, a creative platform with its own identity: a label that is also an ever-shifting collective, radically crediting all its voices. We give collectors ownership and expression of their MCQ items through technology. Our digital platform MYMCQ combines social media with collectors’ archives, a place we meet reflecting our global outlook.
Writer: Kristin Anderson