The Return of the Bumster: How McQueen’s Most Controversial Cut Still Defines the Body

When Sean McGirr sent his models down the runway for McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection, fashion watchers immediately recognised the ghost that had returned. The Bumster - the scandalous, spine-baring trouser that first appeared over three decades ago - was back. Not as a nostalgic gimmick, but as a reclamation of one of fashion’s most provocative ideas: the power of the body through design.

First introduced in Alexander McQueen’s 1993 debut collection Taxi Driver, the Bumster emerged at a time when the designer had little more than a vision and a clothes rail at the Ritz. The trousers sat daringly low, slicing across the hips to reveal what McQueen considered the most erotic point on the human form - not the buttocks, but the small of the back, where the spine begins to curve. It was a rebellion against convention, and a statement that beauty didn’t have to be polite.

There were rumours that the idea came from a moment of humour (the so-called “builder’s bum”) but McQueen’s intent was artistic. He wanted to manipulate the body through cut alone. The Bumster elongated the torso, rebalanced proportions, and in his words, made women “look menacing, because there was so much top and so little bottom.” It wasn’t about exposure, it was about distortion, silhouette, and the tension between power and vulnerability.

The design would go on to define McQueen’s early identity as a provocateur, later echoed across fashion in the low-rise mania of the late 1990s and 2000s. From denim to red carpets, the influence of the Bumster stretched far beyond its origin, morphing into a pop-cultural statement of freedom and defiance. Yet the original McQueen piece remained unmatched in its intent: cerebral, confrontational, and deeply erotic in a way that defied male gaze.

Three decades later, Sean McGirr’s revival feels less like nostalgia and more like conversation. His Spring/Summer 2026 interpretation retains the subversive cut but grounds it in structure - a harder, sharper edge that speaks to modern confidence rather than shock. It’s McQueen’s language rewritten for a new generation, one that has lived through both the backlash and the embrace of body-conscious fashion.

The Bumster’s return is a reminder that fashion’s most radical ideas rarely die; they evolve. What was once scandalous now reads as empowerment - a dialogue between eras, designers, and the ever-changing shape of beauty. In McGirr’s hands, the Bumster doesn’t just expose the body. It exposes how much fashion - and culture - has changed since 1993.

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