ALEXANDER McQUEEN

Lee Alexander McQueen’s graduate collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims, debuts on July 1992 at London’s Kensington Olympia exhibition center. Most notable elements of this first unofficial collection are the Victorian inspired designs, barbed thorn frock coat, suggestion of violence, tailored sleeves, dark thematic material, and the alteration of the body’s silhouette. 

When viewing the video footage, make note of the third and ninth models, whose jackets have unique silhouette aspects that transform their body’s forms. “What I distinctly remember is that if you looked at the collection from the side rather than from the front, you saw this extraordinary silhouette, a bird-like silhouette.” John McKitterick

Isabella Blow, an editor of British Vogue magazine, attended the Central St. Martins graduate show in July 1992 hoping to view the new talent coming out of the school that year. What she was not expecting to witness was the visionary talent of a young man who, at first, was very suspicious about her adoration—Alexander McQueen. Issie later stated:

“I was sitting on the floor, I couldn’t even get a seat at the Saint Martins show, and the pieces went past me and they moved in a way I had never seen and I wanted them. They were modern and they were classical. The colors were very extreme. He would do a black coat, but then he’d line it with human hair and it was blood red inside so it was like a body—like the flesh, with the blood. And I just thought, this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen…I just knew he had something really special, very modern, it was about sabotage and tradition.” Isabella Blow

“I want to empower women. I want women to be afraid of the women I dress.” Alexander McQueen

The most notorious looks from this collection feature models tightly wound in saran wrap—with the transparent plastic splattered in red mud that drips across the subtle folds like blood, their nude flesh showing through. It’s a shocking image. But even here, you can see that the tightly wound saran wrap around one model is cut perfectly to resemble a sleeveless minidress. What is McQueen trying to say with these plastic wrap dresses?

The newspaper, The Independent, reviewed the show stating: “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 wild, drug-enhanced nocturnal dives into clubs where the dress code is semi-naked…a catalogue of horrors…tasteless innovation…the high price of originality.”

Video footage of McQueen’s Nihilism show (may only be playable on YouTube after signing in due to nudity):

Video footage of McQueen’s Highland Rape show (due to nudity, you have to view on YouTube):

March 1st, 1996, McQueen stages one of his most critically acclaimed collections to date, he calls it Dante, it’s partially inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. The venue is a derelict cathedral. He also acquires a significant backer who contributes 30,000 pounds to the production of the show. Sitting in the front row are his mother, Joyce, his friend and unofficial business advisor, Isabella Blow, and a full sized anatomical skeleton. McQueen dedicates the Dante show to Isabella Blow.

Commenting on the spectacle afterward, journalists proclaim that he hit a ‘fashion moment’ with Dante. The International Herald Tribune wrote

“[McQueen] proved that he is not just a fine tailor with a soaring imagination, but one of those rare designers who capture the spirit of the times.” The fashion writer for The Sunday Times, Colin McDowell, interviews McQueen. In a twist of serendipity, McDowell is the author of the first book on fashion which McQueen read when he was a teenager, titled McDowell’s Directory of Twentieth Century Fashion. Now McDowell writes an article about McQueen calling him “the most stimulating designer of the moment…his desire to sweep away the barriers of taste might be the kick-start that fashion needs as we approach the millennium.”

The title and theme for the designs of this collection was inspired by the artwork of German artist, Hans Bellmer. Specifically his photography work in which he deconstructed dolls and rearranged body parts into new formations. The term, La Poupée, is French for The Doll. This was partially one of McQueen’s not-so-subtle digs at the vapid consumerism of the fashion industry, and the objectification of women’s bodies.

But in another more interesting sense, McQueen may have seen himself as Hans Bellmer, playing with dolls and dressing them for his artistic whims—though in this case, his dolls were supermodels like Debra Shaw and Kate Moss. And where Bellmer’s ‘strangest’ impulses were private, McQueen’s were a very public fetish.

Hans Bellmer, shown below, using dolls as subjects of his photography.

“On September 27th, 1996, at the Horticultural Halls, the fashion world experienced a catwalk show that looked like an artwork in itself. The audience watched as the first model walked down a flight of stairs and onto the mirrored black surface; the realization that the girl was walking through water drew a collective gasp of surprise and delight from the crowd.

The models, including Kate Moss, Jodie Kidd, and Stella Tennant, wore Perspex wedge-heeled shoes and they appeared, quite literally, to walk on water.” Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin, Andrew Wilson

The reason La Poupée stands as a turning point collection for Alexander McQueen is because with it he demonstrated his designs not only grabbed the public’s attention, but he also had the vision to create clothing that was commercially viable. Behind the provocation was a mind that understood the balance between art and product.

View the whole show of Bellmer La Poupée in the video below. (Due to nudity it may require viewing on YouTube.)