Alexander McQueen SS '10 RTW: Plato's Atlantis | a thread

This was the last collection Lee completed before he passed away. It turned ten years ago on October, so I suppose this seems bittersweet, but we'll power through this.

INTRO:
This runway collection was deemed revolutionary by the fashion industry, and fully established Lee as a household name, being critically-acclaimed as his finest collection—though I don't understand just how you can ONLY pick ONE of his collections as his best.

THE COLLECTION:
The show began with a large screen with a video of Raquel Zimmerman lying naked on sand with snakes writhing across her body, shot by renowned photographer, Nick Knight.

Knight is responsible for live-streaming the show on his site, SHOWStudio, making Lee the first designer to evolve and adapt to the digital age, allowing young and ambitious people to view his most special collection. His peers would follow suite, as did a new era to fashion.

The title, Plato's Atlantis, stems from the legendary island described by Greek philosopher, Plato, in which the island sank into the sea—it prophesied a future where the ice caps would melt and the seas would rise, resulting in humanity needing to evolve to survive.

Lee projected this theme of ecological breakdown breathtakingly through the clothing, hair and makeup. He had this idea of a futuristic interpretation of Atlantis, and how we might evolve in water.

As the show commenced, we notice these vibrant tones of green and brown in digitally-printed dresses of camouflage prints of roses, and jacquards depicting moths, which were meant to represent life above sea.

Shades of blue and purple were presented in the incorporations of ocean creatures, most noticeably; stingrays and jellyfish. Each design was perfectly engineered onto delicate and structure fabrics to give a consistent flow in the pieces.

We come to the finale pieces, the final stage of evolution; features became more prominent, hair grew higher, and shades of blue, purple, and grey became more vibrant, to mimic the colors of deep sea creatures.

The closing piece is just exquisite; a shifting chrome of blue, purple, and green form-fitting sequin piece which exhibitedthe full transformation of human to sea creature.

(I'm sure I'm wrong on it being made of sequins, though I couldn't find details as to what the material actually is so I thought of the closest thing it resembles.)

DETAILS:
Tlighting turns from a clinical white—similarly to alien abduction films where they only remember being in a white room—to an opaque blue, as if the models are actually just one human being swimming further into sea, adapting to its conditions, metamorphosising.

MAKEUP:
The models were given this androgynous appearance through the cancellation of their eyebrows, and their pale and waxy skin. As the sections of the colelction shifted, the contours of their faces began to distort with prosthetic enhancement.

HAIR:
We begin with plaited hair tight on the heads of the models. And just like that of the makeup, it grew higher as the sections shifted, slowly growing into fin-like peaks, connoting to biological adaption, symbolizing the evolution from human to aquatic humanoid.

THE SHOES:
We had three types of shoes in this collection, all 3D-printed contraptions. The most notable one is what were later called, "Armadillo Shoes", which sort of enveloped the models' legs like the gnarly mouth of a monster.

Bts, models practice: walking in the shoes for quite a while to ensure that no accidents shall happen. Many were up to the challenge, however few top models; Abbey Lee Kershaw, Natasha Poly and Sasha Pivovarova, backed out due to safety concerns. Though no accidents happened.

Editors of British Vogue took the shoes for a test drive with much difficulty. But of course THEY would, they're not models with heavy experience in odd-shaped footwear who had to practice walking in the sensational shoes.

Lady Gaga would be the first person to wear the shoes off the runway, in her breakout music video, Bad Romance, while longtime friend of Lee, Daphne Guinness, would first walk in them on a red carpet event.

Fun Fact: Gaga's former fiancé, Taylor Kinney, bid $295,000 for three pairs of the Armadillo shoes at a UNICEF auction in 2015, each one costing a whopping $10,000, as they were incredibly rare pieces which were never made again once Lee passed away.

Then, you had what were reffered to as "Titanic Shoes", which I think were made to symbolise how we'll be on ships, sailing away from land. Some differed in designs, one had the effect of being rusted, and we see one that is sleek and shiny, like the skin of an orca.

And finally, the "Alien Shoes", which appeared like a tentacle wrapped around the models' ankles. The design bares similarities to the predator in the film, Predator, however it was mostly inspired by the artwork of a special effects team member of the film, Alien, H.R. Giger.

THE DIGITAL AGE:
When Gaga announced on Twitter that she'll be debuting her song, Bad Romance, in Lee's show, the SHOWStudio site crashed due to the amount of McQueen and Gaga fans tuning in.

Lee has always incorporated technology in his work. You all may remember his SS '99 collection, titled: No.13, with the finale of Shalom Harlow being spray-painted by those two robots, which is echoed in this collection by the two large film cameras filming it for the livestream.

And lest we forget the FW '06 show, titled: Widows of Culloden, with the finale of Kate Moss appearing in the tirangular box as a hologram, floating whimsically and eerily like a melancholy ghost.

MY THOUGHTS:
In terms of the theme, here's what I find rather confusing if we look at it from today's current state of the environment; if this were to happen anytime soon, how would we even survive in the water when we have already polluted it, you know?

Even the organizations who make an effort to clean the oceans still have a long way to go. How do we retreat back into the water for refuge from the state we have put our land in when we have done the exact same thing to the ocean? It's quite terrifying, really.

What's ironic about the collection is that as a first impression, anyone can easily assume it's alien-themed. Although considering that Lee took inspiration from films such as; Alien, The Abyss, and Predator, that was most likely his intention.

One thing that separates Lee from his peers is that in his own brand, he has been a Ready-To-Wear designer, and the biggest "Fuck you!" to the industry he has ever given is how he passes Couture as Ready-To-Wear.

I've said this once and I'll say it again; Alexander McQueen's runway collections are more couture than most of today's couture collections.

During an interview for FW '97: It's a Jungle Out There, he said: "I watched those gazelles munched by lions and hyenas and said, 'That's me!' Someone's chasing me all the time, and if I'm caught they'll pull me down. Fashion is a jungle full of nasty, bitchy hyenas."

The hyenas may have done their hardest to kill his spirit, but unfortunately for them, his spirit lives on, and he has gone down as one of the most beloved designers in the world, He did not just give us beautiful clothes, he gave us depth, provocativeness, technology, and art.

"I design clothes because I don't want women to look all innocent and naïve. I don't like women to be taken advantage of. I like men to keep their distance from women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress." - Alexander McQueen