Alexander McQueen was a force to be reckoned with. With his 1993 “Taxi Driver” collection, he immediately achieved what most designers spend a lifetime trying to do—invent a new silhouette, namely his now-iconic Bumster pants. By the time his spring 2003 show, “Irere,” came around, and the Oyster dress made fashion history, no one could have suspected that a less-featured accessory from the collection would go on to carry such weight.
Few accessories have stood the test of time like the Alexander McQueen skull scarf. The print took its lead from the collection’s theme. The show opened with a short film directed by John Maybury, depicting a shipwrecked girl diving into the ocean and surviving to metamorphose into a princess in the Amazon. The title “Irere” is said to be taken from an Indigenous Amazonian language, meaning “transformation.” Given the backstory, no shipwreck is complete without a pirate-inspired skull print.
There are many varieties of the accessory; however, the original print has never changed— further proof of its iconic design. Recently, the skulls have been creeping back in. During his press tour for A Complete Unknown, Timothée Chalamet wore two versions of the scarf while hosting SNL. Then, on the fall 2025 runway, under current McQueen creative director Seán McGirr the scarves made a return alongside a green skull-printed blouse. And just this month at Glastonbury, Charli XCX wore multiple scarves tied together as a top—three major co-signs for its long-awaited return! The scarf has the potential to go the way of the Vivienne Westwood pearl choker and fully reintegrate itself into the mainstream.
“I want it to have a full comeback,” says fashion creator Jake Flemming. Joking that he may be a little biased as an avid fan of the brand (then and now), he adds, “It’s time for this gem to have its moment again, and I think people are going to absolutely eat it up. Gen Z will give it a cooler new life that hasn’t been seen before.” He hopes the current generation of fashion fans will make full use of it, too, styling it as a tie, belt, or bag charm, “since we all love to Jane Birkin-ify everything now.”
Like all good nostalgic accessories, the scarf had a chokehold throughout most of the noughties, gracing the necks of celebrities like Nicole Richie, Kim Kardashian, the Olsens, and Ashlee Simpson, to name a few. More recently, it got a shoutout in season one of the Netflix show You—Beck splurges on the item, which she can’t afford, as a gift; her friend admonishes her, saying they rarely go on sale—a testament to its lasting style and desirability. “The design has always been so on the nose, macabre and pirate-y almost, that it borders on cheesy, but somehow that level of sincerity cuts through the noise,” fashion creator and theorist Rian Phin tells ELLE.
“Funnily enough, most people don’t know that the scarf was technically never off the website! Retailers like Neiman Marcus and Saks still carried it” prior to McGirr’s tenure, says Alejandro, founder and “chief bag officer” of the go-to It accessory Instagram account Y2Kbags. He adds that he also knows people who never stopped wearing it.
In a fashion world defined by transformation, not unlike that of “Irere,” it’s incredibly rare to find an accessory so unchanged after more than 20 years. While many brands reissue pieces from the archive, the McQueen skull scarf has had the pleasure of staying the same. Now it’s time for it to make an official return to the limelight.
McQueen Silk Chiffon Scarf
McQueen Silk Chiffon Scarf
