With university fees rising and the cost of living hitting some pretty stratospheric heights, things aren’t exactly easy for those heading into higher education, with fashion students some of the hardest hit: those rolls of fabric aren’t going to buy themselves, are they? 

Bearing in mind the struggle young creatives are facing, Alexander McQueen’s Sarah Burton has decided to gift unused archival fabric to fashion students across the UK. 

“We’ve never thrown anything away!” Burton told Vogue of the decision. “I was so lucky because when I first worked at McQueen, Lee helped me source fabrics for my final collection... It’s even harder today, at a time when we all feel precious resources must be properly used.”

As part of a move intended to push fashion further towards becoming an eco-conscious industry, hundreds of metres of luxury fabrics have already arrived in classrooms at 14 universities, ready to be repurposed and reused within students’ collections. It is also hoped that it will alleviate the financial stress less privileged designers may be facing.

Were McQueen to be enrolling in university now, in 2020, it’s likely he would have benefitted from the decision. Rising up from a working class background in the east end of London, the iconic designer’s early collections were famously made using whatever he could find, with him and his team patching together and spray-painting pieces moments before they hit the runway. With this in mind, we’re sure he would have applauded Burton’s decision.

Take a look back at some of Dazed’s best McQueen archives above.