Halloween for most females usually has to do with a sexy nurse, sexy Little Red Riding Hood, Playboy Playmate, etc. You see what we’re getting at right? Change up your Halloween game by daring to take on a whole new element of Haute Couture with the ever-iconic Alexander McQueen.We’ll take you through each of his iconic designs from 1997-2008.
We start with McQueen’s fall 1997 show, “It’s a Jungle Out There” which referenced H.G. Wells’s novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau, about a vivisectionist who creates humanoids out of animals. Models hair was turned into manes and used makeup to give a glowering feline aspect to models dressed in leather, acid-washed denim, and animal skins.
For his Fall 2008 collection, McQueen paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II after she appointed him a Commander of the British Order in 2003. The collection spewed royalty. There are so many ways to get this look, so go ahead, channel your inner Queen Elizabeth II.
The 2006 show and collection of McQueen was The Widows of Culloden. This particular show was dedicated to the late Isabella Blow, which many of you remember, the woman who discovered him famously propelled his career, and faithfully wore his clothes—and Philip Treacy’s hats. This collection was a revisit of McQueen’s Scottish ancestry and the subjugation of Scotland at the hands of England. The inspiration was the Jacobite Risings that culminated in the 1745 Battle of Culloden and a memoir to the widows who had lost their husbands in the conflict.
There will always be something about the way Alexander McQueen brought his imagination to life, to this day it cannot be replicated. Take his Fall 2009 collection titled Horn of Plenty, which was filled with fantasy, theater, and couture. One can’t help but think of this collection in a New World/Post Apocalyptic order sort of way, especially given the theatrics of the models as they walked touting their alienesque/ kabuki makeup and slow gates.
The love for Mcqueen, his creativity, and theatrics have culminated in our final collection for what we can say in a true and authentic manner that because of the above-mentioned qualities of this designer, his collections were unlike any other is that will always be memorable and timeless. Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2007 collection gives us Mary Shelley Frankenstein feels all over. The presentation was staged in the round in the Cirque d’Hiver, which was all about romanticism yet historic. The Nineteenth-century, Edwardiana tailoring gave way to a gothic, yet classic, softness of the woman in that era.
In closing, if you want to stand out, yet keep your originality for Halloween, think Mcqueen when putting your costume together.
