OceanofPDF.com Alexander M C QUEEN L I T T L E B O O K O F
OceanofPDF.com This book is a publica tion of Welbeck Non- Fiction Limited, p a r t of Welbeck Publish ing Group Limited a n d ha s not been li c en sed, approved, spons ored, or endorsed by any person or entit y. Any trademark, co mpany name, brand n a me, registered name and logo are the pro p ert y of their respe cted owners and used in this book for re ference and review p urpose only. Published in 2023 by Welbeck An imprin t of Welbeck Non-Fic tion Limited part of Welbeck Publishing Group Offices in: Lo ndon – 20 Mortimer S treet, London W1T 3J W & Sydney – 205 Com monwealth Street, Su rry Hills 2010 www.w elbeckpublishing.com Text © Karen Homer 2023 Picture Researchers: Nini Barbakadze and Josephine Giachero A ll rights reserved. is book is sold su bject to the conditi on that it may not b e reproduced, stored in a retrieval syst em or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, m echanical, photocopy ing, recording or ot herwise without the publisher’s prior co nsent. A CIP catalo gue for this book is available from the British Library. IS BN 978-1-84796-100-6 EISBN 978-1-83935-255-3 Printed in China 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
OceanofPDF.com e story of the iconic fashion designer L I T T L E B O O K O F K A R E N H O M E R Alexander M C QUEEN
OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS
OceanofPDF.com INTRODUCTION ............................................. 06 EARLY YEARS ................................................... 10 CENTR AL SAINT MARTINS ......................... 16 EARLY COLLECTIONS ................................. 26 THE HOUSE OF GIVENCHY ......................... 50 BACK IN LONDON .......................................... 64 COLLABORATORS AND MUSES ............... 120 SARAH BURTON: BEYOND M C QUEEN . . . . 140 INDEX .............................................................. 156 CREDITS .......................................................... 160
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com I N T R O D U C T I O N 7 “The world needs fantasy, not reality. We have enough reality today.” A L E X A N D E R M c Q U E E N L ee Ale x ander McQueen wa s more t h a n just a fashion designer; he wa s an a rtist who trul y deser ved to be c a l le d a genius. His outlandish and sometime shocking creations, “badboy” behaviour outside the studio and the a tri c a l c a t w a l k shows distr a c ted from the fact that he wa s, above a ll, a superb c r a ftsma n . Born in London’s Ea st End, the son of a t a x i driver, McQueen overcame a l l the odds to reach the highest echelons of the fashion world. He left school at just 16 to t a k e up a t a iloring apprenticeship in London’s famous Savile Row. This rigorous, c l a ssi c a l tr a i n i n g , combined with a stint working for the the a tri c a l costumiers Ang els and Bermans, meant that when he graduated from Centr a l Saint Ma rti n s, his si n g u l a r aesthetic wa s a lre ady well formed. His degree show collection was famously bought by Is abell a Blow, who be c ame his patron, muse and friend. O P P O S I T E Al e x a n d e r Mc Q u e e n at his the a tri c a l be st for his S/S 2001 show Voss. The t h eme s were nat ure and m a d n e ss, with the m o d e ls tr a p p e d in a set re s embl ing a padd ed cell. Here, mod e l Karen E lson is s u rro u n d e d by st uffed birds and her s k irt is mad e from fe a the rs. Her head is bandaged and her clothes seem to be half torn off her. INTRODUCTION
OceanofPDF.com 8 I N T R O D U C T I O N McQueen wa s a true autodidact, inspired by histor y and a rt, g ene a log y and folklore. Every one of his collections was meticulously researched, and his inspirations r anged from the macabre murders of Jack the Ripper to the legend of Plato’s utopian city of Atl antis. Cinema, espe c i a ll y thrillers and gothic film noir, had a huge influence on his designs, with collections sparked by the work of directors including Alfre d Hitchcock and Tim Burton. From the very be g inning of his career, he chang ed the fashion l ands c ape, most notably with his provocatively low-cut “bumster” trousers, which c aused a s c anda lous reaction despite the style quickly filtering down to the high street. This was an early example of how McQueen’s intentions were often misinterpreted. The buttcrack-revealing style wa s designed not just to shock but to re ve a l what McQueen considered the most erotic pa rt of the body: the base of the spine. Pa rti cul a rl y during the early ye a rs of his career, McQueen fought the accusation that he hated women. As he told the writer Dana Thomas: “Some people say I’m a mis o g y n ist. But it’s not true. Opposite. I’m tr y i n g to promote women as the leaders. I saw how hard it wa s for my mum to t a k e c a re of us, and I tr y to promote the respect and streng th of women.” McQueen wa s a Londoner through and through and, a fter an une a s y few ye a rs in Paris heading up the l u x u r y French couture label Givenchy, he returned home. He spent the next decade honing his c r a ft, epitomized by his vision of a bold and se x u a l “warrior woman”. McQueen’s turbulent personal life wa s bound up in the inevitable e xc esses of p a r t y i n g , d r u g s and celebrity. He was troubled both within himself and about the state of the fashion world, with its demands of unre a listi c perfection. The suicide of his mentor Is abell a Blow in 2007 wa s a shock and, though he seemed to find a new equilibrium, the death in 2010 of his beloved mother,
OceanofPDF.com I N T R O D U C T I O N 9 Joyce, proved too much. Driven out of his mind by grief, he took his own life barely a week later, on 11 Februa r y 2010. Since his death, the McQueen label ha s been headed up by S a r a h Burton, the light to McQueen’s shade, who had been his trusted deputy for over a decade. The 2011 Savage Beauty retrospective of McQueen’s work, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, showed the world the immensity of his talent, both in the s culptur a l qua lit y of his designs and in the c a t w a l k moments that reached the level of performance a rt. McQueen a lso left the lega cy of the Sarabande Foundation, a charitable organiz a tion dedicated to the support of young, creative talents. L E F T Al e x a n d e r Mc Q u e e n , wearing the Ma cQu e e n clan t a rt a n , was award ed the CBE by Qu e e n E liz a be th II in 2003 .
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com EARLY YEARS
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com Lee Alexander McQueen was born in Lewisham in London on 17 March 1969. Living just about close enough to be able to hear the sound of Bow Bells ringing, McQueen built his image on his roots as a working-class Cockney and a “bad boy done good”. H e wa s the youngest of six children, his father a t a x i driver and his mother a soc i a l science teacher, ma k i n g his rise to become one of the most prominent and s u c c essf u l fashion designers of his generation even more extraordinar y. From a young age, McQueen showed a keen interest in clothes, ma k i n g dresses for his three sisters. At p rima r y school he announced he wanted to be a fashion designer. Re a l izi n g he was gay at the age of six, McQueen wa s bullied and h a r a sse d as well as suffering se x u a l abuse at the hands of his sister Janet’s violent husband. In an inter view with The Times in 2015, Janet said that she believed that McQueen witnessing her being beaten by her abusive husband led him to want to dress women that people would be “afraid of ”. O P P O S I T E As a proud Cockney, Mc Q u e e n found inspir a tion in the h ist o r y of the East End. Old photographs of the Vi c t o ri a n - e r a Club Row bird market on Sclater Street held a p a rti c u l a r appe a l for the designer, who had loved birdwatch ing as a child and frequently used bird motifs – as well as live and st uffed birds – in his shows. A COCKNEY BOR N AND BR ED EAR L Y Y E A R S 13
OceanofPDF.com 14 EAR L Y Y E A R S Describing himself as the “pink sheep” of the family, he c ame out as homosexual to them aged 18, which triggered a turbulent relationship with his father in pa rti cul a r. The close-knit f amil y did eventua lly reconcile, and McQueen wa s espe c i a ll y devoted to his mother, Joyce. McQueen wa s very much his own person even as a teenager, often obser v ing others from a dist anc e and happy to spend hours birdwatching from the roof of his tower block, an obsession that heavily influenced his later fashion designs. He eventua lly left school aged 16, with one O-Level qualification in a rt, to t a k e up an apprenticeship at the Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard, where he spent sever a l ye a rs le a rning the intricacies of cutting the perfect suit before moving to the upper-crust establishment Gieves & Hawkes. The rigorous and precise tr a i n i n g that McQueen received during this time ser ved the designer well as he moved into couture. Throughout his career, he remained obsessive about a chie v ing a perfect cut. He is quoted by the Victoria and Albert Museum as s aying: “Ever y thing I do is based on tailoring.” McQueen went on to e xpl a in how he wa s nevertheless determined to push the boundaries of clothes construction, which he did to remarkable effect: “You’ve got to know the rules to break them. That’s what I’m here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.” After leaving Savile Row, McQueen worked briefly as a pattern cutter at the costumiers Ang els and Bermans, where he worked on st age outfits for productions, including Les Misérables . The world of costume, with a l l its d r ama and hyperbole, wa s as important to the designer as his rigid tr a i n i n g in t a iloring , and here, McQueen found a template for both his love of histori c a l silhouettes and his signature the a tri c a l style. Finally, McQueen spent some time working for the avantgarde designer Koji Yatsuno in London before joining Romeo
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y Y E A R S 15 L E F T As a young man, Mc Q u e e n visited the National Gallery, finding inspir a tion in paintings wh ich inc lud ed h istori c a l dre ss. Th is image of The Tailor , painted in 1565 by Giovanni Ba ttist a Moroni , is p a rti c u l a rl y fitting given McQueen’s later a p p renti c e sh i p on Savile Row and lifelong d evotion to the a rt of tailoring. Gigli as a design a ssist ant in Mi l an in 1989. Returning to London, where he admitted to a friend he needed to work to stop his “overdraft building up”, McQueen applied to Centr a l Saint Ma rti n s to become a patterncutting t u t o r. However, instead of being offered a job, he was encouraged by Bobby Hillson, Head of the M A Fashion Course, along with Jane Rapley, De an of Fashion and Textiles, to apply for her course. McQueen did so, and be c ame a rguably the most memorable and s u c c essf u l of the London fashion college’s list of famous a lumni.
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com C E N T R A L S A I N T M A R T I N S 19 When Lee McQueen arrived at Central Saint Martins in 1990 aged 21, he already had more experience than many of his contemporaries. M cQueen’s talent was immediately spotted by Louise Wilson, who took over the M A fashion course in 1992. The inspirational professor, who shaped a generation of fashion st a rs, remembered both McQueen’s te chni c a l s k i l ls and his selfreliance in an inter view for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of A r t in 2011: “An architect doesn ’ t build the house for you; they employ the builders, whereas Lee, in effect, built the house because he cut the patterns and he sewed the jackets. Basically, he didn ’ t need to depend on anybody.” O P P O S I T E McQueen’s g e n ius was o b v i o u s , even wh ile h e was a s t u d e n t . As he mat ured as a d e si gner his early love of j u x t a p o si n g t e x t u re and p rint only grew , along with his pre ference for animal a nd bird motifs into his d esigns, and he created i n c reasingly complex o u t f i t s , such as this p rinted dress teamed with a ri chly hued f ur coat and feather headpiece from his A / W 2 0 0 6 Widows of Cu llod en c o l l e c ti o n . TRAINING A NATURAL GENIUS
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com 22 C E N T R A L S A I N T M A R T I N S However, McQueen wasn’t entirely a loner, forming a close friendship with fellow student Simon Ungless. Their collaboration lasted beyond their graduation. Ungless, a textile designer who now a lso teaches at the University of San Francisco, played a big pa rt in the formative ye a rs of McQueen’s career. McQueen thrived not only on the rich creative atmosphere generated by his fellow students at Saint Ma rti n s, but a lso by t a k i n g f u l l advantage of London’s abundance of museums and a rt ga lleries. He wa s a re g u l a r visitor to the histori c a l archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which he said “never f a i l to intrigue and inspire me”. The designer a lso drew inspiration from the d a r k l y gothic pa intings held at the National Gallery, and cited Paul Delaroche’s 1833 picture The Execution of Lady Jane Grey as one of his favourites. The stri k i n g ima ge of the doomed queen dressed in v ir g i n a l white and blindfolded is very much in keeping with some of McQueen’s later, more controversial creations. Alwa y s with an eye on the new as well as the past, McQueen wa s equa lly hyped up by the buzz around the exploding world of Brit Art, espe c i a ll y avant-garde young a rtists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. It wa s his ability to draw inspiration from such wide-r anging sources that gave his fashion design a distinc tive edge. JACK T H E R I PPER STALK S HIS V I C TIMS (1992) McQueen’s graduate show collection was entitled Jack the Ripper S t a l k s His Victims and wa s inspired by the White chapel murders of 1888. McQueen’s themes often had an autobiographical element: the Ea st End connection is obvious enough, but his fascination with g ene a log y had revealed that one of his relatives owned an inn that rented a room to a vi c tim P R E V I O U S PAGES Th is s e l e c tion of jackets from the 2011 Savage B e a u t y re trospe c ti v e of McQueen’s work inc lud es a stri k ing pink frock coat, printed with b a r b e d h awt h o r n s, from his Jack the Rippe r St a l k s His Vi c tims col l e c tion. The print is by Simon Ungless and the coat was r umo u r e d to be sme a red with bloodst a ins for authenti c it y.
OceanofPDF.com C E N T R A L S A I N T M A R T I N S 2 3 of Jack the Ripper. His tutor Louise Wilson re c a lled how st o r y tel ling was so important to McQueen’s collections: “[Students] had to do something c a l le d a ma rketing report, which wa s ba si c a ll y setting their collection in context. And even then, Lee’s report was on g ene a log y – Jack the Ripper – and quite in-depth. So it was telling the story of his collection even at that st age. You know, it wa s really, re a ll y personal to him.” L E F T A rare image from McQueen’s graduate fa sh ion show for Central Saint Martin’s entitled Jack the Rippe r St a l k s His Vi c ti m s. His signat ure tailoring and favourite Edwardian silhouette are already obv ious. The s k irt feat ures s c r e e n - printed images by his fri end and col l a bor a tor Simon Un g l e ss.
OceanofPDF.com The collection wa s remarkably sophisticated for a graduating student. Victorian silhouettes were rendered in a palette of black and burgundy, with bloodlike accents of red peeping from their silk lining s as well as lil a c , the traditional colour of mourning. Unsurprisingly, t a iloring wa s the focus, exhibiting McQueen’s greatest s k i l l to f u l l advantage. For example, a black wool frock coat wa s customized by reversing the bottom h a lf of the sleeve to re ve a l the mauve lining. 24 C E N T R A L S A I N T M A R T I N S
OceanofPDF.com C E N T R A L S A I N T M A R T I N S 25 O P P O S I T E Histori c a l paintings were a great inspir a tion to Mc Q u e e n , and Paul Delaroche’s 1833 pi c t ure The Execution of Lady Jane Grey was one of his favourites. The image of the d o ome d and he lpl e ss que en, dre ss ed in virginal white and blindfold ed, clearly influenced McQueen’s later wo r k . In a series of te chni c a l l y accomplished outfits, McQueen offered a gothic twist on Victorian fashions, including butterfly-printed ruffled gowns and, more darkly, a silk satin frock coat printed with barbed hawthorns, the fabric designed by Simon Ungless, and reputedly smeared with bloodst a ins. Discussing this iconic coat with photographer Nick Kni ght in 2015, fashion writer Su s a n n a h Frankel describes the way in which McQueen created his early pieces with an oblique brut a lit y that shadowed his work throughout his c a reer: “He is t a k i n g a fabric and a tt a c k i n g it. It is ama zi n g the fabrics early on could t a k e Lee’s treatment without f a l l i n g apa rt be c ause they were very heavily worked… and very aggressively worked.” McQueen ha s been quoted as s aying: “I find beauty in the grotesque.” This propensity to include provocative and shocking elements within his designs is a lre ady clear in this first collection. To this end McQueen sewed a lock of his own hair, encapsulated in silk or Perspex, into each and ever y c a t w a l k garment. The reference was to the Victorian fashion for lovers to g ift locks of hair, which they bought from prostitutes rather t h a n cut and ruin their own. McQueen’s graduate collection set the st age not only for a c a reer that pushed the boundaries of what wa s acceptable in fashion but a lso for the criticism he would suffer from throughout his life – that he wa s a mis o g y n ist or, even worse, a s adist. Nevertheless, McQueen’s talent wa s undeniable. Sitting in the audience at his graduate show was the eccentric st y list Is abell a Blow, who famously paid £5,000 for the collection. Blow, who would become McQueen’s friend, muse and patron, was the first to see clearly the huge potential of the fashion genius that was Ale x ander McQueen.
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com EARLY COLLECTIONS
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 29 McQueen was that rare being, a truly individual fashion designer. His strong, and often controversial, vision was obvious even in his earliest collections. TA XI D R I V E R (A/ W 1993) McQueen left Saint Ma rti n s and immediately st a rted designing, in the hope that he could make a suc c ess of his own label. He was encouraged by Is abell a Blow, for whom he a lso worked as an a ssist ant. The designer later admitted that he wa s still c l a imi n g unemployment benefits while tr y i n g to create a debut collection on a shoestring, saying in an inter view that was included in the 2018 document a r y McQueen , “I bought a l l my fabrics with my dole money.” McQueen’s first collection wa s entitled Taxi Driver, referencing Ma rti n Scorsese’s 1976 film of the same name, but a lso giving a deliberate nod to his father’s profession. From the very be g inning of his career, McQueen wove the twi n thre ads of autobiography and cinematic inspiration into a l l that he created. O P P O S I T E T h e s e rare early d esign drawings by Al e x a n d e r Mc Q u e e n were mad e during a busine ss trip to visit Italian m a n u f a c t u r e rs in the m i d - 1 9 9 0 s. The wo n d e rf u l l y fluid sketches relate to d esign templates for his S/S 1996 show The Hunger. UNAFRAID TO SHOCK
OceanofPDF.com 30 EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S In 1993 McQueen was chosen by the British Fashion Council as one of six young British designers to have their work shown during London’s Fashion Week. But f a r from the the a tri c a l shows that would d isti n g u is h him later in his career, his first collection was presented hung on mismatched hangers from a single clothes r a il in a room at the Ritz Hotel. The clothes, some emblazoned with the imag e of Robert de Niro’s Taxi Driver cha r a c ter Travis Bickle, were a riot of sequins, feathers and jewels, completely unl i k e the mi n ima l ist aesthetic favoured by his contemporaries. The most iconic garment in the collection wa s the “bumster” trouser, so da ring l y low-cut that the cleft of the buttock wa s revealed. In an inter view with the Guardian about the collection, McQueen denied that his inspiration had come from the notoriously low-slung je ans worn by builders, saying instead: “That pa rt of the body – not so much the buttocks, but the bottom of the spine – that’s the most erotic pa rt of anyone’s body, man or woman.” In his very first collection, McQueen flew in the face of respe c t ability and, in so doing, declared that he wa s a designer u n a fr a i d to push boundaries. As Andrew Bolton, the curator of the 2011 McQueen retrospective Savage Be auty at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, put it: “He was very much about anarchy and about the anarchy of the British street, the anarchy of British music, and trying to, again, harness that into his clothes. And the bumster was one of the garments that, very early on, would make his reputation as this provocateur.” Virt u a l l y no clothes sur v i v e from the collection: legend ha s it that McQueen, eager to celebrate but too penniless to pay to keep the clothes in the Ritz cloakroom, bundled them into bin bags and left them outside the bar he went to. Inevitably, they O P P O S I T E McQueen’s iconic “bumst e r” trouser, shown at his d ebut New York show in March 1 9 9 6 , was one of his e a rl i e st d esigns. Despite shoc k ing onlooke rs, the st y l e filtered quick ly down to the high street in the form of superlow-cut jeans and tr o u s e rs.
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 31
OceanofPDF.com 32 EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S went missing. Only one pair of original bumster trousers survived. The hastily sewn pair, which McQueen borrowed back in 1996 to copy for the c a twa lk, were made in 1992 for McQueen’s friend, the drag a rtist Trixie Bellair. In 2014 they sold at auction for £3,500. N I H I L I S M (S/S 1994) McQueen’s first c a t w a l k collection, for S/S 1994 and shown at the Bluebird Ga r a g e, wa s named Nihilism, a t y p i c a l l y dark moniker a lluding to the philosophy that nothing re a ll y e x ists. As for the clothes, this tr ansl a ted into v ir t u a l l y translucent chiffon garments that barely e xisted themselves – and revealed much of the models’ flesh beneath. McQueen’s love of the macabre revealed itself in a cellophane dress, spattered with rust-coloured paint to mimic bloodst a ins. The se x u a l it y that oozed from the models wa s aggressive; they strode down the c a t w a l k exposed in unbuttoned men’s shirts, simultaneously flipping their middle finger at the audience. The bumster trouser featured, teamed with cropped met a lli c tops so the eye was dr awn even more acutely to the naked midriff, along with the inevitable signature sha rp t a iloring , here with an e x a g g er a ted silhouette. McQueen’s technique – of t a iloring from the side to contour the body perfe c tly – contributed to the periodlooking t a il coa t effect that so many of his jackets and coats have. From this e a rliest show it was clear that McQueen had a huge amount of confidence in his design vision. The jur y wa s still out, however, on his morals. As the Independent put it at the time, in a show review entitled “McQueen’s Theatre of Cruelty”: “McQueen, who is 24 and from London’s East End, has a view that speaks of battered women, of violent lives, of grinding daily existences offset by wil d, drug-enhanced nocturnal dives into clubs where the dress code is semi-naked.”
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 33 BANSHEE (A/ W 1994) McQueen’s second show, Banshee, for A / W 1994–5, was presented at London’s Ca fé de Paris. It took its inspiration from the old Celtic legends of the e v il banshee who wa iled at the sound of a sink ing ship and, it wa s believed, could be seen wa shing blood from clothes of the men about to die. L E F T Mc Q u e e n loved to s h o c k , and the a p p e a r a n c e of a heavily pregnant s k inhe ad mo d e l , his name stenc illed on her head, was a stri k ing contr a st to the E l iz a b e t h a n -s t y l e blac k lace dress she wore.
OceanofPDF.com 34 EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 35 Ag a i n , the inspiration was historical, with El iz a b et h a n -st y le gowns in black and white, one of which wa s shockingly sent out on a heavily pregnant skinhe ad model who had the word “McQueen” stencilled onto her naked head. Is abell a Blow, a lso sporting a sprayed silver “McQueen” (although misspelled) on her head, modelled a purple shirt with an e x a g g er a ted collar. Tailored jackets and cutaway k n itwe a r offered more struc tured options within the collection, and a series of black and silver chiffon shirt dresses fe a turing prints by Simon Ungless were surprisingly wearable. Over a ll, there was a softer sense of gothic whims y compared to his first, harsher collection, and McQueen wa s be g inning to make some s a les through Pellicano in South Molton Street. T H E BIR DS (S/S 1995) McQueen’s third c a t w a l k show, often the make-or-break collection for an up-and-coming designer, wa s for S/S 1995. The show was held at Bagley’s, a seedy warehouse more used to hosting drug-fuelled raves, and for it McQueen once a g a i n delved into film archives, this time t a k i n g as his inspiration Alfre d Hitchcock’s iconic 1963 horror film The Bird s , st a rring Tippi Hedren. The thriller, with its flock of c r a zed birds that viciously att ack humans, wa s a favourite from McQueen’s childhood. Hedren’s sexy, 1950s styling, in the form of pencil skirts and figure-hugging dresses, was obviously a jumping-off point for the designer, but the destructive madness of the birds translated into deconstructed tailoring as well. Simon Ungless and Andrew Groves, McQueen’s then boyfriend, designed prints for the show, including a swallow motif and tyre tracks, inspired by the scene in which everyone is fleeing the possessed birds in their cars. Ungless is quoted in a 2015 piece for The Cu t , describing how this p a rti c u l a r scene caught McQueen’s imagination: “Complete O P P O S I T E Th is m i l it a r y -s t y l e jacket from McQueen’s B a n s h e e coll e c tion is mad e from blac k coating wool and feat ures an e x t r a - high st and collar, empire -l ine sleeves and gold braiding. The a r m p its are sl a shed o pen in t y p i c a l Mc Q u e e n s t y l e .
OceanofPDF.com 36 EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S chaos and human vulner abilit y in the face of nature gone wrong.” McQueen a lways used a wide v a riet y of te x tiles and in the early days these were usually, out of necessity, very cheap. For The Birds, he spotted a roll of unwanted plastic pa llet wrap in the street. He took it home, tr ansforming it as he wound it around a dressmaker’s dummy, snipping here and there, into a R I G H T McQueen’s show invitations were often dist urbing. Th is invitation for his S/S 1995 show The Birds feat ured the blurred image of a d ead c h i c k .
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 37 sleeveless transparent dress. Needless to say, a version turned up on the c a t w a l k to critical a c c l a im. This ability to create clothes out of very little, and in record time, wa s one of McQueen’s most impressive talents. As Andrew Groves told Dana Thomas in The C u t : “He put a huge piece of silk on a stand, cut a neck hole out of it, wound thread all around it, poured late x on it, [added a] slash down the back for a zipper and said, ‘There’s one dress.’ Ideas like that were getting churned out every hour or so.” The Birds a lso saw McQueen collaborate for the first time with both Simon Costin, the a rtist and set designer who would become so instrument a l in the creation of McQueen’s most iconic fashion shows, and st y list Ka t y Engl and, who would become his creative director. Grand took Ungless’s tyre-print design one step f u rt h er by a c t u a l l y muddying a t y re and rolling it on the model’s a rms and torsos so the motif flashed from beneath their undone jackets. Thus, McQueen’s vision of the Hitchcock scene, described gruesomely by the designer as “Birds, road, c a r t y re, splat!”, wa s re a l ize d . The show is widely credited with launching McQueen into the big le a gues of fashion designers. However it a lso generated accusations of mis o g yny and violence towards women, which would follow him his entire career. The show is a lso interesting for the gender-defying appe a r anc e in this early show of corsetier Mr Pearl. The ba llet danc er turned self-taught corset-maker, who had collaborated with Lei gh Bowery, was spotted by McQueen we a ring a tight corset at a nightclub. The designer asked him to wa l k for The Birds, which he did – we a ring a tailored jacket and fitted red bird-print pencil s k irt, his corset giving him a fre a k is h - looking 18-inch wa ist. As he would do throughout his career, McQueen put what inspired him onto the c a twa l k , rather t h a n what was expe c ted.
OceanofPDF.com 38 EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S H I G H L A N D R A P E (A/ W 1995) If The Birds t h r u st McQueen into the upper echelons of fashion design, Hi ghl and Rape, for A / W 1995, confirmed that he belonged there, despite the controversy the show garnered. It wa s a lso his first collection to be shown in the official British Fashion Council tents. The first point to clear up is that the word “rape” wa s misleading. As Andrew Bolton, the curator of Savage Beauty , explained in the notes to accompany the exhibition: “At the time, people thought the rape referenced the rape of women. But it was actually the rape of Scotland by England. The collection actually referenced the Jacobite risings of the eighteenth century and the Highland Clearances of the nineteenth century.” R I G H T A tri p t y ch of g a r m e n ts on mo d e ls’ dummi e s awaiting completion for McQueen’s A / W 95 Hi g hl and Rape show. The s e l e c tion inc lud es on the rig ht a tailored st a n d - c o l l a r jacket, the body section made of the Ma cQu e e n clan t a rt a n , with jeweller Shaun Leane’s fob chain closure. On the le ft is a blac k and gold dripping " W i l l i a m Morris" sheath dre ss, the print is a Simon Ungless d esign for Al e x a n d e r M c Q u e e n .
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 39 Despite McQueen’s show notes including a pa ss a g e e xpl a ining the histori c a l references, the skeptics weren’t convinced, and the show sent shock waves through the fashion press, generating ha rsh reviews. One of these wa s by Sa ll y Brampton, who wrote in the Gu a rd i a n , “It is McQueen’s brand of mis o g y n isti c absurdity that gives fashion a bad name.” McQueen’s c a se wasn’t helped by the models who wa l k e d the bracken-strewn runway with distr aught expressions, their breasts exposed and we a ring clothes that had been slashed, torn and splattered with f ake blood. McQueen defended himself, citing his Scottish heritage and telling Time Out ma g a zi n e that the collection wa s “a shout a g a i n st English designers … doing flamboyant Scottish clothes”. In pa rti cul a r, McQueen took issue with Vivienne Westwood, long a lover of g l amourized t a rt a n , albeit with a healthy side dose of punk. Despite the obvious simil a rities between the two designers, Westwood wa s not a f an of L E F T A pair of b l a c k , p e ri o d -s t y l e shoe s from McQueen’s Hi g hl and Rape col l e c tion. The handmad e , blockheeled blac k leather shoe s were mad e by London’s Hous e of B e a u t y and Culture, a collec tive of i n d e p e n d e n t d e si gne rs kn own for their subversive d esigns during the 1 980s and 1 9 9 0 s.
OceanofPDF.com 40 EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S L E F T Mc Q u e e n re t urned to the theme of his Scottish a n c e s tr y oft en. Th is outfit from the Hi g hl and Rape coll e c tion inc lud es a sleeveless, d e c o n s tr u c t e d , tailored jacket with white st a r ched collar and a long bias-cut s k irt in the Ma cQu e e n clan t a r t a n .
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 41 McQueen either, telling the Sunday Times in 2000: “His only u sef u l n ess is as a measure to zero talent.” Jeweller Shaun Leane, another long-time collaborator of McQueen’s who was first commissioned by the designer to make fob watch chains for Highland Rape, was indignant when recalling the show 25 years later in an interview with FW, the magazine created by Judith Watt and former BA Fashion Journalism students at Central Saint Martins: “What me and Lee did, was that we dressed those girls for battle, but in a beautiful, empowering way”. Opinions on the mess age behind McQueen’s Hi ghl and Rape collection might have been mixed but there wa s no doubt that the clothes themselves were ma sterf u l . The “bumster” trouser appeared once a g a in, and this unlikel y fashion icon would soon hit the ma i n stre am when Madonna wore a pa ir in an advertisement for MTV, leading to a trend for low-slung hipster jeans. The collection had a typically historical feel too. MacQueen clan tartan was heavily featured, including in the form of a slashedopen tailored jacket with a matching, beautifully cut bias skirt. Several outfits were finished with high collars, based on leather military neck “stocks”, and trimmed with an Elizabethan-style white ruff. Tartan wa s a motif that McQueen would return to a g a i n and a g a i n throughout his career. He felt extremely strongly about the commodification of traditional Scottish t a r t a n and what it represented, and wanted to use his designs to expose the brut a lit y of histor y rather t h a n romanticize it. As Jonathan Faiers put it in an essay for the Metropolitan Museum of A r t : “Many designers who reference history display a form of historical seamlessness in which the past is perfectly and nostalgically recreated in the present. With McQueen, however, the reference is not as comfortable; the suture lines of his muchdiscussed ‘s u rgic a l’ tailoring techniques are still visible as uneasy gra fts of history onto contemporary garments.”
OceanofPDF.com
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 43 T H E HUNGER (S/S 1996) The buzz surrounding McQueen was growing, but this had not yet tr ansl a ted into profit, and so his S/S 1996 show The Hunger had a meagre £600 production budget. Perhaps in light of the need to sell his clothes, the collection wa s more commercially viable t h a n McQueen’s previous offerings – and with less shock value, although it did include his first use of live creatures, in the form of a plastic corset filled with worms. DAN TE (A/ W 1996) After his previous collection McQueen had signed a de a l with Japanese backer Onward Ka s h i y ama , giving his label a much-needed injection of c a sh. His next collection, Dante, was held in the baroque Christ Church in Spitalfields, built by Nicholas Hawksmoor, who wa s reputed to be a Sa t anist. The eerie, candle-lit church, styled with blood-red roses, wa s redolent of McQueen’s beloved Ea st End d a r kness and the O P P O S I T E Jodie Kidd mod e lling in McQueen’s New York Dante show in 1 9 9 6 . She wears a c r u s h e d printed silk and velvet sleeveless bodice with long d r a p e d tail and white ostri ch feather collar. Her headpiece is mad e from o r n a m e n t a l p h e a s a n t tail fe a the rs, wh ich were sourced by Simon Ungless’s g ame ke epe r father. B E LOW A rare b e h i n d -t h e -s c e n e s shot from the p e rs o n a l album of Ruti Danan showing a young Al e x a n d e r Mc Q u e e n wor k ing on a fitting with a male m o d e l .
OceanofPDF.com 4 4 EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S Jack the Ripper themes that inspired his graduate collection. Some of his Huguenot ancestors had even been buried in the very same church. And if anyone was in any doubt as to McQueen’s obsession with death, there wa s a skeleton seated in the front row. The religious backdrop wa s ma int a ined when the collection wa s shown a second time at a disused s yna g o g u e on New York’s Lower Ea st Side. Named for the author of the Divine Comedy, an a lle gori c a l narrative that e x amined the soul’s wandering journey through the a fterlife, McQueen took the theme of religion further, to e x amine war and peace throughout the ye a rs. He told Women’s Wear Daily at the time, “I t h i n k religion ha s c aused ever y war in the world, which is why I showed in a church.” A B O V E Two rare b a c k s t a g e shots of Mc Q u e e n including one of Jodie Kidd, with her iconic c u r v e d p h e a s a n t feather headpiece, receiving final a d j u st m e n ts be fore his A / W 1996 show.
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 45 The irreverence of McQueen’s choice of a church for his venue wa s deliberately shocking , and the st a g ing of the show emphasized his defiance. Models, including Kate Moss, wore eye ma s k s be a ring the crucified form of Christ on them and stuck their tongues out as they wa l k e d the crucifix-shaped c a twa l k , a l l to a soundtrack that included haunting Gregorian chants. The violence of war wa s impossible to ignore as McQueen, inspired by the g ritt y Vietnam war photography of Don McCullin, took the ima g es and asked Simon Ungless to print them onto fabrics for his collection. McQueen hadn’t asked for McCullin’s permission, though, so the orig ina l garments had to be destroyed, but the pa ir be c ame friends and over the ye a rs, the photographer took many portr a its of both McQueen and his collections. The black and white printed jackets and coats were modelled by youths plucked from the Ea st End and dressed as the g a n g s of dr ug -de a ling teens from Mixed Bl o o d , the 1984 film by Andy Warhol acolyte Paul Morrissey. Earlier histori c a l battles were referenced by mi l it a r y and naval-style frock coats and cadet trousers, although the latter were given the bumster treatment. Victoriana, a recurrent theme for McQueen, wa s re a l ize d by plenty of lace, including mourning veils, and st y l ize d lilac corsetry, supplied by Mr Pearl. In contrast, bleach-splashed denim injected a modern, street-punk edge. This wa s a more decadent collection from McQueen who, for the first time, chose luxurious fabrics rather t h a n the cheap materials he had often been forced to use t h a n k s to a restrictive budget. Mongolian lambswool and white cashmere were just two examples. With the financ i a l ba cking of Onward Ka s h i y ama , McQueen wa s able to have his suits made to the highest st anda rds in Italy, although there was plenty of the u s u a l art-school inventiveness too, as described in AnOther
OceanofPDF.com 4 6 EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S magazine’s retrospective of the l andma rk show in 2018: “The draped devoré velvet dresses and s k irts were made in-house and the bleached denim wa s knocked up by Andrew Groves in the bath of his studio flat.” Dante was a lso the show where McQueen first collaborated with milliner Philip Treacy, who created some of the first of McQueen’s iconic a n i m a l headpieces. The dr ama ti c stag’s s kull with horned antlers was sourced by Ungless from his gamekeeper father. The hunting theme, as well as McQueen’s bird obsession, wa s f u rt h er emphasized by the appe a r anc e of aristocratic model Stella Tennant, who c a rried a live falcon on her wrist. Treacy, who would go on to create many remarkable pieces for McQueen, told The Cut in 2015: “Dante was the show that made him, actually. The thing is, everybody loves Ale xander now, but they didn’t at the beginning. And when he did that show, suddenly people could see his potential, because it was beautifully done.” R I G H T Al e x a n d e r Mc Q u e e n b a c k s t a g e , a ss e ssing a mod e l who is wearing the gold braid coat that was event ually mod e ll ed by Helena Christ ens en in his Dante show.
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 47 B E L L M ER L A POUPÉE (S/S 1997) McQueen’s S/S 1997 show was inspired by the fetishisti c German a rtist Hans Bellmer and his 1936 tableaux, La Poupée (translated as “The Doll”). Bellmer created his disturbing ima g es by photographing me c h ani c a l dolls, which he took apa rt and reassembled in str ang e, mutilated forms, posing R I G H T For the Be l l me r La Poupée show, mod e l De b r a Shaw wore a piece of Shaun Leane’s “contortion” jewellery, consisting of a metal fr ame a tt a c h e d to her elbows and th ig hs. Mc Q u e e n was heavily c riti c ized by those who believed this was an allusion to sl a ve r y.
OceanofPDF.com 4 8 EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S L E F T AND BELOW An invitation to McQueen’s S/S 1997 Be l l me r La Poupée show feat uring one of surre a list a rtis t Hans Be l l me r’s uns e ttl ing images of mutilated m e c h a n i c a l d o l ls, from wh ich Mc Q u e e n got his i n s p ir a ti o n .
OceanofPDF.com EAR L Y C O L L E C T I O N S 49 them in various domestic setting s. With a strong surre a list undercurrent, the pieces, seen at the time as a reaction a g a i n st the Nazi concept of the perfect A r y a n woman, appealed to McQueen, who wa s fa s c inated by the idea of body f a s c ism. Throughout his c a reer McQueen cha llenged assumptions about how bodies should appear, often distorting model’s proportions through the cut of his clothes, hair, make-up and jewellery. The “bumster” trouser, for example, d r ama ti c a l l y elongated the torso. Often, the effect wa s intended to be erotic. But in La Poupée, McQueen’s shock t a c ti c s were considered by many to go too far. The most criticized was the “contortion” jeweller y McQueen commissioned Shaun Le ane to create, in p a rti c u l a r a met a l fr ame worn by Black model Debra Shaw over a v ir t u a l l y transparent net dress. With the fr ame fastened to her elbows and knees, Shaw juddered une a sily down a water-covered c a twa l k , her movements reminiscent of Bellmer’s me c h ani c a l dolls. The connotations of slavery were inescapable, but McQueen denied his creations were in poor t a ste. Along with translucent fabrics and e x a g g er a ted proportions, it wa s the s culptur a l headpieces, synthetic doll-like ha ir and met a lli c make-up that made the overall effect of the collection so disturbing. Fully embracing the show’s the a tri c a l potential, McQueen directed the girls to wa l k provocatively, as if in a performance, e x a g g er a ting their movements in a way that contrasted d r ama ti c a l l y with the t y p i c a l l y anodyne appe a r anc e of runway models. The finale to La Poupée featured a model wa l k i n g out be a ring a translucent polygon-shaped box filled with butterflies. The effect of McQueen’s show wa s unre a l, and while the fashion world were unsure about what it a l l meant, there wa s no doubt he wa s a master of the a tri c s.