Lee Alexander McQueen’s last collection was shown today in Paris. References to great works of art, imagery of wings and feathers, strikingly unusual prints, the color red: all of the late designer’s signatures are here in this brief, 16-look show.
McQueen digitized and re-engineered images from the art canon and rendered them as textile prints. This dress incorporates scenes from the third panel of Hieronymous Bosch’s masterpiece “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Up close, you can actually see the Prince of Hell eating the body of a condemned man. The Prince has the head of a bird, and the man’s ass is hanging out of his beak. A stream of demons and bats and pestilence is spurting out of the man’s asshole.
If you look carefully at the painting itself, it strikes me that McQueen’s famous “Armadillo” shoes from his penultimate collection look very similar to the bulbous, green shoes on the Prince’s feet. Is this where McQueen got his inspiration for those?
UPDATE: Commenter Sableized points out that in this close-up of the Bosch painting, you can make out that Moloch is in fact wearing wine jars on his feet, not shoes. They still look very much like McQueen’s Armadillos.
The presentation was held at the headquarters of François Pinault, the owner of the brand’s parent company, in place of a runway show. McQueen was famous for his designs, but also for his showmanship: he had models stomp through pools of water, a double-amputee walked for him on a pair of carved wooden prostheses, he based one of his show concepts on the film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, and once, he had two automotive robots circle Shalom Harlow, spraying her white dress with jets of paint.
The ecclesiastical theme continues with stained-glass jewelry.
I wasn’t able to identify all of these works of art that served as McQueen’s sources, but I believe most, if not all of it, is Northern European. This dress seems to incorporate images of St. George, patron saint of England, and St. Nicholas. At least, a friend I asked for help thinks so, and I agree: George is in his armor and carries his flag, and Nicholas is often depicted wearing a cardinal’s hat. I also see a Christ child. The carving that runs along the edge of the fabric is probably by the Dutch carver Grinling Gibbons, who worked on St. Paul’s Cathedral and Hampton Court Palace.
UPDAE: The Guardian attributes the painting to 15th Century French artist Jean Fouquet.
Pinault waited until seven days had passed after McQueen’s death to announce, in a conference call with reporters, that the fashion house the designer founded, and which Pinault’s company acquired in 2001, would continue its operations. “The Alexander McQueen trademark will live on,” he said.