While chiefs of PPR — which owns the Alexander McQueen label — including McQueen CEO Jonathan Akeroyd, Gucci Group CEO Robert Polet, and PPR CEO Francois-Henri Pinault, urged Burton to head design after the designer committed suicide nearly a year ago, “For quite a long time I didn’t want the job,” she says. “I thought: how would I ever even begin to begin? Lee’s mind was so different to everyone else’s. I knew there was no way I could pretend to be him; but I had to ask myself, what did Lee work for? For all this to close down? I thought about what I wanted. What was best for me. Like many women my age, I do want children, but I came to think that that’s not a reason not to take up a challenge. In the end, I decided to just get on with it: do my best.” Read more in the print edition of British Vogue’s February issue, in which Burton also reveals this about her job interview with McQueen, “I remember Lee asking me, ‘Do you believe in UFOs?’”
When Hiring Sarah Burton, Alexander McQueen Asked If She Believed in UFOs [Fashionologie]
