St Fagans, the ‘living museum’ in Wales that inspired an Alexander McQueen collection
- Sarah Burton took the Alexander McQueen design team on a research trip to the the open-air museum near Cardiff
- Influences from carved wooden love-spoons to the court of a medieval prince appear in the brand’s autumn/winter 2020 collection
When I read about the inspiration for this season’s Alexander McQueen womenswear collection in the show notes I did a double take. Creative director Sarah Burton has become known in the fashion industry for taking her design team on research trips around Britain and, ahead of autumn/winter 2020, she took them to St Fagans, on the outskirts of Cardiff, in Wales.
Thought to be named after a 2nd century saint and the site of a pitched battle during the English civil war, in 1648, these days St Fagans is an affluent village that’s home to a popular open-air, living museum. I grew up nearby and have visited often, so I was intrigued to see the McQueen team similarly captivated.
Having gone through a few name changes, it is officially now called St Fagans National Museum of History but is known by locals simply as St Fagans. Its main draw is a collection of more than 40 historical buildings, including cottages and churches, mills and tanneries, which have been meticulously transported from all over Wales and recreated in a bucolic setting.
These structures, as well as the galleries and workshops showcasing Welsh social history and craftsmanship, were the stimulus for Alexander McQueen’s autumn/winter collection.
Perhaps St Fagans was on Burton’s radar as it was named UK Art Fund Museum of the Year in 2019, beating the glitzy V&A Dundee to the prize. St Fagans was the vision of the late Welsh poet and academic Iorwerth Peate, who, in 1948, sought “not to create a museum which preserved the dead past under glass but one which uses the past to link up with the present”.
When I visit in the first week of reopening, in August, after coronavirus lockdown in Wales, it is slightly different to the pre-pandemic experience. Not all the facilities are open but it is still a joy to follow the looping lanes, catching glimpses of thatched roofs poking above verdant hedges and dry stone walls.
There is something to discover around every bend. The outdoor set-up and acres of space make it easy to keep your distance from other visitors. First-timers may want to buy a map at the visitors’ centre but after months of lockdown and subsequent regulations, I prefer to meander, choosing forks in the path that take my fancy.
The first building I come across is Kennixton Farmhouse, one of Burton’s major influences for autumn/winter. Not only does the vibrant redexterior feature liberally throughout the clothing range but a shock of the colour was slicked through the models’ hair in the catwalk show, which took place in Paris, in early March.
It is thought the 17th century farmhouse was painted red to protect against evil spirits, a precaution also seen in Chinese culture. Ordinarily, you can venture inside most of the buildings for an insight into what life would have been like for the inhabitants, but for the time being all the interiors are closed.
It’s a short stroll to Gweithdy, a striking modern pavilion that’s part of a recent £30 million (US$38.5 million) makeover. The name is Welsh for “workshop” because usually the venue hosts interactive craft demonstrations. The McQueen team would have seen quilting and love-spoon displays here.
Love-spoons were carved from a single piece of wood and inscribed with symbols of affection, such as hearts and locks and keys, by men for their betrothed as early as the 1600s. The McQueen designers were clearly taken with them, cleverly copying the intricate patterns in exquisite lace, which they used to make cocktail dresses or appliqued onto leather coats. Hearts were also printed on the silk taffeta of voluminous gowns.
I would have loved to have seen the Wrexham Tailor’s Quilt, made over a 10-year period from 1842, which also had a big impact on Burton. Working for the military by day, master tailor James Williams spent his nights making the patchwork from offcuts of uniforms.
The design incorporates both biblical scenes and Industrial Revolution developments in Wales, including Thomas Telford’s Menai suspension bridge and a steam train crossing a viaduct. Curiously, it also features a Chinese pagoda. The museum’s principal curator of contemporary and community history, Elen Phillips, thinks it reflects the tailor’s knowledge of the wider world and that he probably copied it from Spode willow pattern china.
The delicate quilt is in storage for safekeeping but Phillips hopes to put it back on display in the future.
Ordinarily, at the Esgair Moel Woollen Mill visitors can see 18th century flying shuttle looms turn wool into cloth for Welsh shawls and blankets. Apparently, Burton was taken with the idea of both men and women carrying babies in shawls wrapped around their bodies in the Welsh tradition.
A group of off-duty miners seem to have become her unlikely muses; there’s a black and white photograph of them, circa 1940, carrying babies this way on Burton’s mood board, in the McQueen design studio.
The two most recent additions to St Fagans are an Iron Age farmstead – a collection of round houses with conical thatched roofs – and the court of a medieval Welsh prince. Rather than transplanted buildings, they are based on archaeological excavations.
I follow a wide thoroughfare through the woods to the latter, Llys Llywelyn. Inside are striking red and white chevron stripes and tapestry, all recognisable influences in the McQueen collection.
As a child, I loved the Tollhouse for its dinky size and hexagonal shape. But tollhouses were historically loathed – and sometimes attacked – because they demanded exorbitant sums from poor farmers who needed to use roads to travel around the countryside for work. Similarly, the round Cockpit opposite has an unsavoury past as the setting for the cruel sport of cockfighting, which was banned in 1849.
Nearby the sedate village green has a clutch of photogenic retro stores. Pre-pandemic, visitors could catch a waft of freshly baked bread available to buy at Derwen Bakehouse, one of the interactive elements temporarily on hold.
Although this part of St Fagans may not have inspired Burton,it might look familiar to Doctor Who fans from the David Tennant era of the television show. But that’s another story …
At the time of writing, entrance to St Fagans National Museum of History is by advance booking only, although entrance is free (there’s a charge for parking).
