{"id":1047,"date":"2025-12-03T16:27:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T23:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/?p=1047"},"modified":"2025-12-03T23:14:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T06:14:44","slug":"mcqueen-evocation-and-the-fashion-madhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/archives\/1047","title":{"rendered":"McQueen: Evocation and the Fashion Madhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Image sourced from GATA Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will begin with the statement that fashion, as an umbrella term, is not an evocative object. In its modern form, fashion is too widespread, commercial, capitalized, and individual for all of it to be considered evocative. Fashion is viewed by the mass majority of people in the way Kopytoff defines commodities- being produced materially as something, but also being marked societally as such. It is a wonderful, divine medium, but it doesn\u2019t have one singular meaning, as not all of them are exactly designed to shake a person\u2019s worldview or way of thinking, nor act as a transitional object and a basis of emotional connection. What is infinitely more interesting, however, is when designers use the medium of fashion as an object through which they can proclaim their own evocations, as does the Spring 2001 collection entitled Voss by the late, great British designer Alexander McQueen.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

There is an evocation of insanity throughout the collection- the models walk with jerky, unnerving, enigmatic movements and expressions. The makeup is pale and bilious, the hair is covered with wrappings and bandages as if they\u2019ve just come out of surgery. The set is designed to look like a padded cell, and there are one-way mirrors inside offering a voyeuristic view into the encagement, a view that satirizes the way the fashion industry preys on designers and models, treats them as entertainment, discards them the moment their evocation has been ran dry.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

There is an evocation, that of discipline, throughout the collection. It is often said that fashion is a discipline itself, a code, a simultaneous desire and denial of values, be it aesthetic, functional, or emotional. The showpieces are uncomfortable, made of unconventional materials, both unorthodox in style and responsibility. A bodice of blood-red venetian glass, a breastplate of spiked silver and black pearls- a dress of ostrich feathers and microscope slides, a periwinkle straightjacket frilled with amaranth. It is all a discipline, a discipline of lunacy that is par for fashion\u2019s course.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Furthermore, the evocation of transition and reinvention manifests with intrigue and aplomb. Many pieces are distinctly androgynous- menswear staples such as the pantsuit are deconstructed into gauzy and feminine silks and chiffons. Comedic surrealism is also used- a necktie becomes a makeshift halter, an unfinished puzzle is now a chestplate, a model castle perches itself on a model\u2019s shoulder, weighing her down with the burden of being just that, a model. It\u2019s a very liminal form, a form that tiptoes between expectation and self, the cultural and the natural, the rigidity of grounded society and the freedom of surreal insanity.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And another evocation begins to reveal itself, that of meditation and vision. Natural materials feature throughout- seashells fresh from the British coast, various explosions of feathers, the fearsome stillness of taxidermied birds. They are indeed familiar, but they are manifested uncannily, disorientingly unfamiliar. They infuse the collection with a contemplation of sorts, a contemplation on how these objects have both been made and found, found to be made into its own reflection on the hauntings and perils of modern fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, at this point in his life, McQueen, who was 31, had grown tired of the insatiable thirst of the fashion elite. He was in the process of leaving his position as the head of Givenchy, a storied Parisian couture house, and he had always struggled with the press\u2019s framing of him as a rebellious, working-class outsider in the upper-class society of luxury fashion. He was heavily smoking and using drugs, and had grown weary of the immense pressure put on him, especially regarding rumours surrounding his work at Givenchy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when one analyzes this show retrospectively, it becomes clear that this collection is, by both definition and practice, a quintessential example of what Turkle considers to be an evocative object. The whole show is a double-entendre, showing the fashion elite what they want to see by way of \u201cwearable\u201d clothing and commercialized androgyny, but also laughing in their face, satirizing their seriousness and forcing them to commit their own sins, viewing the clothes and models as scrutinized lab rats for experimentation. It is an object of discipline and desire, controlling his deranged fantasies within the constraints of traditional fashion. It is an object of transition and passage, allowing the concepts in his mind to be transported into reality, traversing the line between the constructed and the abstract, the self and its surroundings. It\u2019s a liminal collection, an intermediate space between fashion\u2019s expectation and McQueen\u2019s heedlessness.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And, most obviously, it is an object of meditation and new vision, giving old objects a new meaning and purpose through a new medium or way of thinking. A dress of razor clam shells is most likely the most obvious reference to this logic, with McQueen even referencing it in a 2000 Women\u2019s Wear Daily interview, saying \u201cThe shells had outlived their usefulness on the beach, so we put them to another use on a dress. Then Erin [O\u2019Connor] came out and trashed the dress, so their usefulness was over once again. Kind of like fashion, really.\u201d (Fallon)<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It\u2019s all a phantasmagoric display, escalating into a final display of writer Michelle Olley, fat, nude, and covered in moths, a direct contrast to the sanitized, tall sylphs floating through the show. And yet, the collection is its own evocative object for McQueen, in its existence as a provocation to thought, a companion to his emotional life, an undying legacy in the face of modern fashion\u2019s tendency to steal, beg, barter, copy, backstab, and ignore. It\u2019s pure, unbridled, raw, hopelessly realistic fashion that is simultaneous in its purpose as a commodity and its evocation as a manic transcendence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Objects, as per Turkle, shift their meanings with time, place, and individuals. Fashionable objects go in and out of style. But just like the amaranth, the unfading bloom, a designer\u2019s evocation never dies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n