“Subversion,” when so often clumsily interpreted in the hands of fashion, feels much like some drugstore Halloween costume. But under the eye of Sarah Burton and the studio team at McQ, it comes to life beautifully, in a way that Burton’s storied mentor himself could likely have gotten behind: the urban tempered by the luxe, gorgeous tailoring married with art school gothiness (echoed even in a Bauhaus-esque McQ logo “band tee”), and anchored in rich fabrications. For all its straightforward shapes, Pre-Fall spanned a dizzying array of artistic inspirations in its materials: a stunning jacquard in a Pollock-y splatter, a patent blue-and-white marble print, a shearling-lined biker jacket with a matte “concrete” finish. Or take the marabou feathers, which came trapped under tulle in a simple dress; a skirt in bonded denim and buttery leather; and the sporty, no-nonsense knits teamed with a pink glitter bandeau. Even distilled into contemporary pieces with lots of sporty edge, they’re the kind of contrasts that are still synonymous with McQueen’s legacy today.