Inside the boundary-pushing arts foundation set up by the late fashion designer.
A pair of handsome, newly restored Grade II-listed Georgian townhouses in Tottenham (a skip and a jump from the Hotspur stadium) have seen many lives and achievements in their centuries of shelter. Originally built in 1715 for Sir Hugh Smithson, a city merchant and MP for Tottenham, they have recently been transformed into a second home for the Sarabande Foundation, established in 2006 by fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen to offer gallery, workshop and studio space (for up to two years) to creatives shaping the cultural landscape. In these light-filled townhouses, experimentation is the order of the day. Before his death in 2010, McQueen regularly supported creatives and arranged to fund scholarships at Central Saint Martins and The Slade. Having then established the Sarabande Foundation, he tasked Trino Verkade, with whom he had worked closely for 18 years, with growing it. Indefatigable, and with a striking shock of red hair, Verkade left her job as CEO of Thom Browne in 2015, and moved from New York to London to take on the project full time. She has given it real horns – acquiring and renovating a stable block in Haggerston to give the Foundation a home and longevity, and establishing an influential board of trustees and ambassadors including artist Sam Taylor-Johnson, photographer Nick Knight and curator Andrew Bolton. “It is incredible being in a role that has the freedom to look at what is happening culturally and is able to react” says Verkade.
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