Until Friday, few outside the fashion industry’s precious circles and a handful of celebrities would have heard of Sarah Burton. As right-hand woman to the British couturier Alexander McQueen, her talents became his tool; it was his label and he signed the collections.
Now, however, Burton is known to every fashionista and royal-watcher from London to New York. Her name has been on every newspaper front page. And speculation is mounting that, having been chosen by the new Duchess of Cambridge, Burton is a prime choice for taking one of the most respected jobs in fashion.
According to a shortlist leaked to Women’s Wear Daily, her name had already been mentioned in connection with the top post at Christian Dior, vacated after John Galliano was sacked for alleged anti-Semitic remarks. Now many believe the royal wedding could set her apart from other contenders such as Tom Ford and Hedi Slimane.
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“I think the world is her oyster at this point. I think she’s going to be living off the high of this. I think Sarah can really call her own shots now,” Elle creative director Joe Zee was quoted as telling celebrity Web site HollywoodLife.
Proponents of the theory point out that Dior chairman Bernard Arnault is notoriously media-savvy, and claim he remembers the selling power of royalty, having seen Princess Diana boost the image of Dior in the mid-1990s when she was photographed carrying a Lady Dior bag and, on a separate occasion, wearing a Dior gown by Galliano to attend a gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
That power was already on display as retailers raced to create cut-price copycat versions of the dresses worn by Kate Middleton and her bridesmaids, which are expected to set wedding trends for the rest of the year and beyond.
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“The dress Catherine wore for her engagement was copied by a number of retailers and sold very well. Replicas of her wedding dress and other outfits from the royal wedding are sure to be in stores very quickly and retailers will be expecting good sales,” said Sarah Cordey, a spokeswoman for the British Retail Consortium. “It’s likely lace and draped fabrics will become key trends in the next few weeks.
“Any event which gets people excited about clothes is good for the high street, and the new Duchess of Cambridge is already a fashion icon.”
That status was cemented on Friday almost entirely through the choice of Burton as designer. In Paris, the wedding gown won praise from leviathans of French fashion including the hard-to-please Karl Lagerfeld, artistic director of Chanel, who described it as “refined ... with an air of the 1950s which reminds us of Marilyn or Elizabeth II’s dress.” Nathalie Rykiel said the dress was “simple but magnificent,” while Jean-Charles de Castelbajac said he was moved by its “nobility” and “purity.”
For Burton, who took over as creative director at the Alexander McQueen label after her mentor committed suicide in February last year, this celebrity whirl is anathema. Several people in the fashion industry whom we contacted described her as a very private person. Apart from a few words to Vogue magazine, she is not known to have ever given a formal interview and little is known of her private life.
“She is unusual in that she doesn’t give interviews and never has in all the years she worked for McQueen and since his death,” said one insider who did not want to be named. “She hates the idea of being a celebrity or star designer; it’s not her style at all. She just wants to get on with her work and be known for that.”
Of her experience making Middleton’s dress, Burton, who lives in north London with her fashion photographer husband David Burton, gave the barest of statements: It had been the “experience of a lifetime,” she said. “I have enjoyed every moment of it.” Burton also designed the gown Middleton wore to the evening reception.
Scant details are known about the 36-year-old’s background. She was born in Manchester, one of five children, including a brother who is a professional oboe player and a sister who is an opera singer. She did an art foundation course at Manchester polytechnic where she switched from fine art to fashion and moved on to the prestigious Central Saint Martin’s College.
“At one point, I was going to study Fine Art at Ruskin College in Oxford, but I decided I wanted to pursue my interest in fashion,” she told Vogue last year.
Her tutor, Simon Ungless, was a friend of Alexander McQueen and persuaded the designer to take Burton for a one-year work experience placement at his then tiny studio in Hoxton Square. She never looked back. The apprenticeship was a success and when she graduated in 1997 she joined the company as McQueen’s personal assistant before being made responsible for the women’s wear collection in 2000.
She slowly and steadily built up a client list among the rich and famous, making dresses for Michelle Obama, actresses Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow, and Lady Gaga. After the death of McQueen, whom Burton credited with teaching her everything she knew about haute couture, his protege was appointed to replace him at the head of the fashion house.
Jonathan Akeroyd, president and chief executive of Alexander McQueen, said: “Having worked alongside Lee [Alexander] McQueen for more than 14 years, she has a deep understanding of his vision, which will allow the company to stay true to its core values.”
Robert Polet, head of the French group Gucci, which owns the label, added: “Sarah has a real talent, a close understanding of the brand, and the vision necessary to take it forward.” The Gucci group said Burton’s appointment would continue McQueen’s “visionary and avant-garde creations.”
At the time, French fashion consultant Jean-Jacques Picard described Burton as one of a new wave of designers who were “discreet, pragmatic and far removed from the glittery star system.” “They are stylists for whom fashion has to make sense and not only shock ... the ego, the over-the-top, the unwearable: All of that is out of fashion.”
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