The Horn of Plenty

This article is about the fashion collection. For other uses, see Horn of Plenty.

Look 45, the final dress from the collection, at Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty , Victoria and Albert Museum, 2015

The Horn of Plenty: Everything But the Kitchen Sink is the thirty-fourth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, made for the Autumn/Winter 2009 season of his eponymous fashion house. The collection drew on household rubbish and the aesthetics of classic haute couture fashion to satirise the fashion industry for its wastefulness and lack of originality. The Horn of Plenty also featured reimagined designs and reworked items from previous collections, serving as a retrospective of McQueen's own design history. Common design flourishes included houndstooth patterns, design elements overdone to ironic proportions, and prints based on the natural world. Production was shadowed by photographer Nick Waplington, who published a photo book documenting the collection's creation in 2013.

Forty-five looks were presented at the collection's runway show, which was staged on 10 March 2009 at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in Paris. The centrepiece of the set was a large pile of props from previous McQueen shows, painted black. The models were styled with exaggerated lipstick and headpieces made from everyday refuse like aluminium cans, and extreme platform heels based on historical styles. On the runway, they struck poses which called back to the stylised body language in silent films and mid-century fashion photography.

Contemporary critical response was mixed, with some feeling the styling of the collection was misogynistic, while others appreciated the showmanship and references to fashion history. The collection is better regarded by retrospective reviewers, and it is often cited as one of McQueen's most memorable collections. Academic analysis has focused on the underlying commentary and themes, particularly the ideas evoked by the pair of fully-feathered dresses that closed the collection. Ensembles from The Horn of Plenty are held by various museums and have appeared in exhibitions such as the McQueen retrospective Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty .

Background

British fashion designer Alexander McQueen was known for his imaginative, sometimes controversial designs, and dramatic fashion shows. ^{[1] [2]} During his nearly twenty-year career, he explored a broad range of ideas and themes, including historicism, romanticism, femininity, sexuality, and death. ^{[1] [2] [3]} He began his career as an apprentice on Savile Row, earning a reputation as an expert tailor. ^{[4] [5]} In 1992, he graduated with his master's degree in fashion design from Central Saint Martins (CSM), a London art school. ^{[6] [7]} He launched his eponymous fashion house shortly after. ^[8] From 1996 to October 2001, McQueen was –in addition to his responsibilities for his own label –head designer at French fashion house Givenchy. ^{[9] [10] [11]} He was unhappy at Givenchy because of creative differences between him and the label. In December 2000, McQueen sold 51 percent of his company to Italian fashion house Gucci, retaining creative control. ^{[12] [13] [14]}

McQueen had a difficult relationship with the fashion industry. The extreme styling in his first collections resulted in media accusations of misogyny; despite his objections, the label persisted through much of his career. ^{[15] [16] [17]} McQueen was often ambivalent about continuing to work in fashion, which he sometimes described as toxic and suffocating. ^{[18] [19] [20]} By the mid to late 2000s, he had reached a point of exhaustion with his career, at one point saying, "I go in, I do my business, do the parties, and leave." ^{[21] [22]} He told a friend he regretted signing his contract with Gucci, but feared putting his employees out of work if he stepped down from his brand. ^[23]

Several of McQueen's collections were intended as commentary and critique on the industry. ^[24] It's a Jungle Out There (Autumn/Winter 1997) used the short lifespan of the Thomson's gazelle as a metaphor for the "fragility of a designer's time in the press." ^{[25] [26]} Voss (Spring/Summer 2001) and What A Merry-Go-Round (Autumn/Winter 2001) used imagery associated with insane asylums and circuses to portray the fashion industry as chaotic and deranged. ^{[27] [28] [29]} The program notes for Natural Dis-tinction, Un-Natural Selection (Spring/Summer 2009) explained that McQueen was concerned about how industrialisation and consumerism were damaging the natural world. ^[30] By the time he staged The Horn of Plenty, McQueen was more disillusioned with fashion than ever, particularly in light of the 2007–2008 financial crisis that had devastated the global economy. ^{[31] [32]} He was concerned with the way the rapid turnover of the fashion cycle relied on consumerism and over-consumption to turn a profit, creating unnecessary waste and exhausting designers. ^{[31] [33] [34]}

Birds, wings, and feathers were a recurring theme in McQueen's work. ^{[35] [36]} His fifth collection, The Birds (Spring/Summer 1995), was inspired by ornithology, the study of birds, and named for the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds. ^{[37] [38]} Several garments from this collection were printed with silhouettes of swallows in flight. ^{[39] [40]} The stage of his thirty-first collection, La Dame Bleue (Spring/Summer 2008), was illuminated by giant blue neon wings. ^{[41] [42] [43]} Other collections with heavy use of avian elements included Voss (Spring/Summer 2001), Irere (Spring/Summer 2003), and The Widows of Culloden (Autumn/Winter 2006). ^{[44] [45] [46]}

Concept and collection

Inspiration

Look 29, featuring a reworked print from The Birds (Spring/Summer 1995) ^[31]

Jacket with swallow print from Look 33 of The Birds, as presented at Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2024

The Horn of Plenty: Everything But the Kitchen Sink (Autumn/Winter 2009), generally referred to as The Horn of Plenty, is the thirty-fourth collection McQueen made for the his eponymous fashion house. ^[47] It was conceived as a dark satire of the fashion industry with pastiches of notable designers and McQueen's past works. ^{[31] [48]} He felt the industry was reliant on reusing old ideas rather than coming up with new concepts, and would be even risk-averse during a recession. ^{[49] [34] [50]} McQueen intended to stand out and attract attention by rejecting the safe approach; he described it to journalist Susannah Frankel as "a sackable offense". ^{[32] [49]}

McQueen, 39 at the time the collection was conceived, viewed The Horn of Plenty as the last he would make as a young man, and sought to create a retrospective of his career to that point. ^[51] Accordingly, many details, including the set decoration and soundtrack, referred back to previous collections. ^{[31] [52]} The title was taken from the name of a pub associated to the final victim of Jack the Ripper, calling back to McQueen's first collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims (1992). ^{[34] [53]} Many designs were revisions of earlier ideas, while other items, like the chainmail yashmak , were archival pieces taken from previous collections, often heavily restructured. ^{[31] [54]} Archival bottoms were reworked into tops, trousers into sleeves, and dresses into coats. ^{[55] [48]} A hat from one of McQueen's Givenchy shows was reconstructed in reverse. ^[56]

McQueen's concerns about wastefulness and consumerism were reflected in designs that appeared to be made of trash, such as coats which looked like bin bags or bubble wrap. ^{[48] [54]} These items were made from expensive non-renewable specialist materials such as paper nylon and lacquered silk; McQueen described the use of such materials as an additional layer of irony. ^{[47] [32] [57]} Visual inspiration for the trash-as-couture aesthetic was a 2007 portrait by Hendrik Kerstens. It features the artist's daughter wearing a white plastic bag as a wimple, referencing the work of 17th century painter Johannes Vermeer. ^{[58] [23]}

New Look "Bar Suit" by Christian Dior, 1947

Blue tweed suit by Coco Chanel, 1955

Little black dress by Hubert de Givenchy, 1961

Inspiration from other designers were wide-ranging. ^[23] McQueen drew extensively on the fashion of the 1950s for the collection, particularly the hourglass silhouette. He made visual allusions to the New Look created by designer Christian Dior, the tweed suits which Coco Chanel was known for, and the little black dress popularised by Hubert de Givenchy. ^{[15] [36] [54]} There were possible references to later designers as well: the wrap dresses of Yves Saint Laurent, the unusual silhouettes of Cristóbal Balenciaga, a knitted dress with embellishments that suggested the medusa logo of Versace, and a 1990s dress from Comme des Garçons. ^{[59] [34] [60]}

McQueen may also have been referencing the so-called "Hobo couture" collection by John Galliano for Dior. ^[15] Presented in Spring/Summer 2000, Galliano's collection featured clothing made from rubbish like old newspapers and models styled to look homeless, resulting in significant controversy. ^[61] McQueen and Galliano's careers overlapped, and they were frequently compared in the press because of their similarly theatrical styles. ^{[62] [63] [64]} McQueen, who had a competitive streak, resented the comparison and often sought to emulate or outdo Galliano's ideas in his own work. ^{[65] [66]}

Collection

The palette was mainly black and white, with strong accents of red and orange. ^{[54] [47]} Primary silhouettes included McQueen staples like tailored coats, slim waists, and large shoulders, as well as boxy jackets, a shape he rarely used; conversely, he avoided his usual corset-based designs. ^{[54] [35]} Design elements like bustles and ruffles were overdone to the point of parody. ^{[67] [48]} The collection prominently featured patterns, including harlequin diamonds, houndstooth, and Prince of Wales check. ^{[68] [47] [54]} The harlequin diamonds called back to the circus theme of What a Merry-Go-Round. ^[69] The use of houndstooth, a reference to Dior's New Look, was especially exaggerated – some ensembles had multiple items in different sizes of the pattern. ^{[70] [71]} Look 6 had a fur coat rendered in a large houndstooth. ^[72]

Despite the theme of trash and waste, the collection heavily references the natural world with animal prints and real furs. ^{[73] [74]} The use of red and orange against black was a reference to animals with warning colors. ^[49] There was a strong emphasis on avian elements, including feather prints, a birdcage hat, and garments made from actual feathers. ^[46] A print of swallows which had appeared on several garments from The Birds was reworked for TheHorn of Plenty. The new version featured a houndstooth pattern that, through tessellation, transformed into magpies, referencing the mathematically inspired art of Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher just as the original collection had. ^{[31] [75]} In folklore, magpies are said to be thieves attracted to shiny things; fashion theorist Jonathan Faiers thought the use of the magpie may have been a metaphor for fashion's own vices. ^{[67] [76] [77]} Fashion historian Alistair O'Neill noted in Greek mythology, women are often transformed into birds to escape trouble. McQueen frequently said he sought to transform women through clothing to protect and empower them. ^[78]

Accessories were made from repurposed everyday items. ^[47] Miliner Philip Treacy made hats from lampshades and umbrellas, among other things. ^{[47] [79]} Hairstylist Guido Palau made headpieces from aluminium cans sprayed black and wrapped in plastic. ^{[a] [47] [81]} McQueen had experimented with extreme footwear for previous collections. His Spring/Summer 2008 collection, La Dame Bleue , included high platform shoes inspired by the Japanese geta and the Venetian chopine of the 15th century. ^[82] He brought these ideas into The Horn of Plenty, which featured platform boots in houndstooth and red geta-style heels with a thin strap like a Mary Jane shoe. ^{[83] [84]}

Production and photo book

Bubble wrap jacket from Look 43, presented at Lee Alexander McQueen & Ann Ray - Rendez-Vous (2024)

In 2008, McQueen asked his friend Nick Waplington, a photographer, if he would be interested in collaborating on a photo book documenting the creation of The Horn of Plenty from beginning to end. ^[32] Although he was interested, Waplington was living and working in Jerusalem and wanted to put off McQueen's project for several years while he finished his work there. ^{[b] [51]} McQueen insisted that it had to be that collection at that time. Waplington realised that McQueen saw the collection as something unique – "his last collection as a young man" – and agreed to take on the project. ^{[51] [86]} McQueen also asked his journalist friend Susannah Frankel to participate. ^[32] McQueen was generally private to the point of deliberate obtuseness; both Frankel and Waplington considered the project an opportunity to glean an unusual amount of insight into his mind and creative process. ^{[32] [87]}

Work on the collection took approximately six months, during which Waplington shadowed McQueen and his team closely. The majority of production was concentrated into the final five weeks, beginning in February 2009 with preliminary work at McQueen's London workshop, a final week of polishing in Paris, and ending with the runway show there. ^[32] McQueen was an unusually hands-on designer. Rather than direct the process from above, he personally cut, pinned, and often sewed parts of the pattern for each runway piece. ^{[88] [55]} The majority of the production team had worked with McQueen for years. Frankel described them as working on The Horn of Plenty with a degree of commitment she considered "unprecedented"; they were exhausted by the time they reached Paris. ^[55]

Waplington took approximately 700 to 800 photographs during his time with McQueen, deliberately staying in the background so as to not interfere. ^[86] Once the show had concluded, McQueen and Waplington selected about 300 photographs which McQueen arranged for the final book. ^[89] During the editing process, the pair added photos of landfills and recycling plants, juxtaposed with those of the collection to reinforce McQueen's point about environmental destruction. ^{[90] [57]} Although the book was completed by late 2009, minor issues with the publisher delayed their signing a contract until after the Christmas holidays that year, and in February 2010, McQueen committed suicide. Waplington received a number of offers to publish the book, but the Alexander McQueen brand asked Waplington to wait; he agreed, not wanting to go ahead "without their blessing". ^[86] The book, Alexander McQueen: Working Process, was published in 2013. ^[86] The Tate Britain held an exhibition of the photographs in 2015. ^[91]

Runway show

Production details

Red and black mermaid gown with feather pattern from the retail collection, at Rendez-Vous (2024)

The runway show was staged on 10 March 2009 at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in Paris. ^[92] The show was dedicated to McQueen's mother. ^[48] The invitation featured an 2007 portrait by Hendrik Kerstens. Inspired by the work of 17th century painter Johannes Vermeer, it features the artist's daughter wearing a white plastic bag as a wimple. ^[58]

McQueen worked with a consistent creative team for his shows. ^[55] Overall styling was handled by Camilla Nickerson, while Gainsbury & Whiting were responsible for production. ^[92] Joseph Bennett, who had designed all of McQueen's runways since No. 13 (Spring/Summer 1999), returned for set design. ^{[93] [94]} Hair was styled by Guido Palau, make-up by Peter Philips. ^[92] Philip Treacy created headpieces. ^{[92] [89]}

The runway was made of cracked black glass, which author Dana Thomas took as "a swipe at fashion's self-obsession", and curator Kate Bethune thought was an allusion to the shattered economy. ^{[54] [34] [48]} The centrepiece of the set was a large pile of props from McQueen's past shows, all painted black. ^[54] There were horses from the carousel in What a Merry-Go-Round, the chandelier from Sarabande (Spring/Summer 2007), and a branch from the tree at the centre of The Girl Who Lived in the Tree (Autumn/Winter 2008). ^{[47] [95] [55]} There was also, in a nod to the collection's subtitle, a kitchen sink. ^[48]

Styling

Models were styled with stark white face makeup, bleached eyebrows, and exaggerated, overdrawn lips in red or black. ^{[47] [96]} McQueen originally wanted a look that emphasized the eyes, but Philips created a lip-centric look, drawing on McQueen's ideas as well as his own. The white face came from the makeup of the Elizabethan era, while the dark overdrawn lips were taken from clown makeup and actress Joan Crawford. ^{[97] [81]} Some reviewers have identified the makeup style as a reference to avant-garde performance artist Leigh Bowery, whom McQueen knew and admired. ^{[31] [23] [97]} Frankel took it as a jab at the kind of extreme distortions in appearance that can be created by plastic surgery. ^[58] Eric Wilson from The New York Times suspected an influence from the Terry Gilliam film Brazil (1985). ^[15] McQueen also wanted to draw on "Eliza Doolittle at the flower market before she transforms in My Fair Lady ". Palau's hairstyling wound up accounting for this. He concealed the models' hair within head wraps, then added arrangements of aluminium cans wrapped in plastic, creating what Philips called a "dirty, early morning flower market" look. ^[81] Hairstyling and hats were unique to each model and each look. ^[89]

The poses and gestures the models made while walking called back to the stylised body language in silent films and mid-century fashion photography. ^{[15] [98]} Some models found it difficult to walk in the extremely high heels that accompanied most outfits. ^[58] Polina Kasina told fashion theorist Caroline Evans, with some amusement, that they were "easy to walk in", but frightening nonetheless, because "you never know" what might happen on the runway. ^[99] Kate Bethune perceived a strong Gothic influence to the runway show, with styling that "teetered on the precipice between the grotesque and the farcical". ^[48]

Catwalk presentation

Look 17 at Savage Beauty, 2015

Forty-five looks were presented across roughly three phases. The first fourteen looks were primarily based around houndstooth and check patterns. ^[100] For Look 5, model Amanda Laine wore a houndstooth "New Look" dress accessorised with the metal coiled collar originally used in It's a Jungle Out There , created as a visual reference to the neck rings traditionally worn by the Southern Ndebele people of Africa. ^{[72] [101]} The hem of her dress is coated in a black material that appears like tar, and on close inspection, actually depicts a silhouette of a scene. ^[102] Look 8 features the same style of pheasant claw earrings that Leane had developed for Look 14 of Dante (Autumn/Winter 1996). ^{[54] [103] [104]}

Looks 15 through 38, the largest part of the collection, mostly comprised ensembles in black, with some red-based outfits as well. ^[105] Look 33 comprises a hat and coat of black fur, worn with a black leather belt. ^[106] According to Jonathan Faiers, the ensemble is dyed goat fur, although it is often said to be monkey fur. He identifies its origins in the experimental monkey fur garments designed by Elsa Schiaparelli in the 1930s, as well as in a coat made of human hair from McQueen's Eshu (Spring/Summer 2000). ^[74] For Faiers, it "represents McQueen’s ability to combine the natural world [...] with references to fashion history itself". ^[74]

The final seven ensembles were all showpiece dresses. Looks 39 through 42 had patterns with a base of red. ^[105] Faiers identified Look 40, a red and black feathered dress, as a reference to a pheasant-feather dress from The Widows of Culloden (Autumn/Winter 2006). ^[107] Look 42 featured a reworked version of a chainmail yashmak by Leane originally made for Eye (Spring/Summer 2000), worn underneath a silk gown with a milk snake print in red, black, and white. ^{[108] [54]} Look 43 was a one-shoulder black mermaid gown in nylon made to look like a bin bag, styled with a floor-length shawl made to appear like black bubble wrap. ^[105]

The final two looks were a pair of knee-length dresses covered in duck feathers; these were inspired by the White Swan and Black Swan characters from the Matthew Bourne interpretation of Swan Lake, respectively. ^{[105] [49]} Look 44, in white, alluded to the demure White Swan with an exaggerated cowl surrounding the model's upper body and head. ^{[105] [54]} The final showpiece, in black, referenced the more aggressive Black Swan character. ^{[105] [54]} The dress has a small waist and large shoulders; this is primarily an exaggeration of the typical 1950s silhouette, but also resembles the puffy leg-of-mutton sleeves common in the 1890s. ^{[36] [107]}

Like Voss and Pantheon ad Lucem (Autumn/Winter 2004), the show closed with the sound of a flatlining heart monitor. ^[109] After taking his bows, McQueen departed immediately for his hotel room rather than meet with guests backstage, as is customary in the fashion industry. He had been avoiding these after-show meetings for several years by this point. ^[58]

Reception

Contemporary

I think it's dangerous to play it safe because you will just get lost in the midst of cashmere twinsets. People don't want to see clothes—they want to see something that fuels the imagination.

Alexander McQueen in The New York Times , 11 March 2009 ^[15]

Critical reception to TheHorn of Plenty was divided. Some found the trash-centred theme, extreme heels, and exaggerated makeup misogynistic, while others appreciated the showmanship and references to classic haute couture. ^{[105] [15] [54]} Buyers from high-end retail stores like Bergdorf Goodman and Holt Renfrew were enthusiastic about the commercial potential of the collection's unconventional designs. ^[49] On the other hand, The New York Times quoted an unnamed magazine editor dismissing it as "a collection inspired by Wall-E ", a 2008 film which depicts Earth as a trash-strewn wasteland. ^{[15] [110]} Godfrey Deeney from Harper's Bazaar felt there were some "standout pieces" among the strange designs, including the houndstooth items that opened the show. ^[111]

Sarah Mower from Vogue wrote that McQueen was "the last designer standing who is brave or foolhardy enough" to present a collection so divisive. She felt the collection lacked McQueen's usual romantic side, and instead was full of "anger, defiance, or possibly gallows humor". She concluded that the collection "didn't push fashion anywhere new", but suspected that was central to the point McQueen had been making. ^[54]

Eric Wilson of The New York Times called it the season's "most ambitious" collection. He called out the "challenging and confrontational" aspect of the collection, but questioned whether McQueen was being hypocritical by drawing so extensively on fashion history while dismissing it at the same time. He pointed out that the breadth of referencing meant that some elements were "lost or obscured". ^[15]

The staff reviewer at Women's Wear Daily called it a "full-strength, hard-core McQueen experience", highlighting the dramatic showpiece items. ^[49] Jonathan Akeroyd, chief executive officer of the Alexander McQueen label, told the magazine that the collection had performed well commercially, with showpiece designs accounting for some 35% of total sales. ^[49]

Retrospective

The Horn of Plenty was certainly among Alexander McQueen's most brave and savage visions. If our fruitless obsession with physical appearance seems like dangerous territory for a fashion designer then that was precisely the point.

Susannah Frankel, Alexander McQueen: Working Process, 2013 ^[89]

Retrospective commentary highlights the show's underlying theme. In her foreword to Working Process, Frankel described the collection as "satirical to the point of vicious". ^[58] Bethune wrote that it was a "a powerful comment on the excesses of fashion in a modern consumer age". ^[48] Alexander McQueen archivist John Matheson described The Horn of Plenty as a "defining collection" for McQueen, because the "wickedness, the romance, and the sense of humour" had come together in balance. ^[112]

In 2015, Wonderland magazine picked The Horn of Plenty as one of their top seven McQueen shows, calling it "an animalistic obsession reaching its couture peak". ^[113] A 2023 L'Officiel USA article called it one of McQueen's most iconic shows. ^[114] When Vogue magazine asked various designers about their favourite shows by others, in 2024, Marine Serre picked The Horn of Plenty, calling it a "powerful visual critique of consumerism". She said that McQueen's mix of aesthetics and messaging inspired her own work. ^[115] Seán McGirr, the creative director of the Alexander McQueen brand since 2024, cited The Horn of Plenty and Plato's Atlantis as having had a strong influence on him in his formative years in fashion. ^[116]

Analysis

Collection as commentary

Coatdress from Look 15, presented at Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse at Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec

Fashion journalist Alex Fury felt the collection exemplified McQueen's tendency to craft shows that functioned as "pointed commentary" on the world. ^[59] Cultural theologian Robert Covolo described The Horn of Plenty as an example of how McQueen transformed the look of the human body to comment on social issues. In particular, he argued that the repetition of similar styles on models who acted similarly "evoked the idea of an insane repetition", reinforcing McQueen's criticism of how repetitive consumerism drove environmental destruction. ^[117] Robert McCaffrey, writing in The Fashion Studies Journal , wrote that the collection "succeeded in satirizing the impossible beauty standards of the fashion industry and also the disposable and deathly cycle of fashion production". ^[118]

The duck-feathered finale dresses have attracted commentary about their meaning and symbolism. Jonathan Faiers analysed them together, arguing that they evoked the idea of a flock of birds rather than being an attempt at "straightforward bird mimicry". ^[46] He considered the white dress "more remarkable" than its black counterpart, writing that it "cocoon[ed] and disabl[ed] its wearer", turning her into a living symbol of "hatching and rebirth". ^[107] Many have noted the resemblance of the black dress to the plumage of a raven; these birds are often depicted in culture as symbols of death. ^{[36] [119] [120]} Theorist Mélissa Diaby Savané wrote that the use of raven symbolism was an example how McQueen created garments that he felt were empowering for the wearer, enabling them to "inspire fear in others". ^[119] Faiers argued that the dress combined multiple visual references from religion, cinema, and fashion history into a "scrambled feathered hybrid". ^[107]

Alessandro Bucci analysed the black finale dress in an in-depth object study. Bucci argued that the dress presented a metamorphosis from human to animal that was frozen at the point of being almost complete. On the runway, the model became "a sinister ebony creature full of thoughts, of energy and sensuality [...] a raven, a romantic and melancholic symbol of death". ^[120] He noted that this was not unusual for McQueen, who had presented metamorphic designs in many previous collections. ^[120] While many critics have defined this tendency as being in the Romantic tradition, Bucci instead identified the black feathered dress, and The Horn of Plenty in general, as Surrealist in nature, with its "juxtaposition of mutually unrelated objects". ^[121] For Bucci, the finale dress was a Surrealist version of Dior's New Look, with its parodically-exaggerated hourglass silhouette contrasted with its avian features. ^[122] He interpreted it as McQueen pressing for change: both in the personal sense of helping women change into empowered beings with his designs, but also in the general sense of seeking a "renovation of the fashion industry". ^[123] He concluded his analysis by calling the dress an example of how McQueen blurred the boundaries between fashion and art with his showpiece designs. ^[124]

Other analyses

Janice Miller examined the exaggerated makeup from TheHorn of Plenty, pointing out the sexual symbolism of the enormous red lips. Psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham popularised the notion that there is "a symbolic relationship between mouths and vaginas in human libidinal development", and in popular culture, this is sometimes taken to mean that red lipstick is "designed to mimic female genitalia". In The Horn of Plenty, the exaggeration of the lipstick beyond the natural lip line, and the use of unnatural colours, "creates a cavernous orifice that is both fetish object and threat", to the point of evoking the folk story of the vagina dentata – a vagina with teeth with the power to castrate. For her, it was an example of how McQueen "confronted his audience with common fantasies and fears about women and female sexuality". ^[97]

Fashion theorist Jonathan Faiers described The Horn of Plenty as a preparatory step toward McQueen's next – and final – collection Plato's Atlantis (Spring/Summer 2010). He likened McQueen to an insect going through metamorphosis or a snake shedding its skin, reinventing himself and discarding each previous phase in his creative development in order to "evolve into [his] final form". For The Horn of Plenty, this was particularly pronounced, as McQueen was not only discarding his own past, but "that of fashion history itself". McQueen distorted traditional silhouettes and design flourishes to an extreme degree, so that "they seem in danger of imminent collapse", representing his view on the industry and the economy as a whole. ^[22] Faiers identifies the complex digital prints in The Horn of Plenty, based on animals, as a stepping stone to the elaborate prints of Plato's Atlantis, which Fairers viewed as McQueen's creative "apotheosis". ^[125]

Timothy Campbell contrasted McQueen's work with The Horn of Plenty to the work of designer Martin Margiela, who is known for reworking old or unwanted materials, such as surplus military socks, into luxury fashion items as a protest against waste in the fashion industry. ^[126] He described several elements of The Horn of Plenty as an "inversion" of Margiela's reclamations. Campbell argued that the pile of black-painted props represented McQueen discarding rather than reusing them, and that McQueen's use of luxury fabrics to replicate trash was the opposite of Margiela's use of old materials for high-end fashion. Campbell concluded that McQueen's argument is "the same position [as Margiela's] from the opposite side"; that is, McQueen sought to make a statement about the "unsustainable material waste" produced by the fashion industry, while also demonstrating that it was possible for the industry to contemplate reuse of discarded things. ^[127]

Legacy

Houndstooth coat from Look 7, at Rendez-Vous (2024)

Several looks from The Horn of Plenty have been photographed for Vogue. Mario Testino photographed an editorial featuring a houndstooth skirt suit in 2009. Pop singer Lady Gaga wore the one-shoulder black mermaid gown from Look 43 for a shoot by Josh Olins. Patrick Demarchelier and Tim Walker photographed Look 10 and Look 2, respectively. ^[128]

McQueen's next collection, Plato's Atlantis, featured another extreme platform shoe, the armadillo shoe. These runway-only designs are almost 12 inches (30 cm) from top to sole, with a 9-inch (23 cm) spike heel. ^{[129] [130] [131]} Several models declined to walk in Plato's Atlantis because of their concerns that the heels were too high to be safe, although in the end none fell. ^{[132] [133]}

In 2012, the Royal Mail released a set of stamps featuring iconic British fashion designs; the final look from The Horn of Plenty appeared on one. ^[134]

In 2017, McQueen's longtime collaborator Shaun Leane auctioned a number of pieces he had created for the house at Sotheby's in New York, including at least one from The Horn of Plenty. ^{[c] [136]} A coiled collar of silver-plated brass, originally worn on the runway for It's a Jungle Out There and reused for The Horn of Plenty, sold for $243,750. ^[137] Fashion collector Jennifer Zuiker auctioned her McQueen collection in 2020, including several items from The Horn of Plenty. ^[138] A red and black tunic with swallow print, Look 29 on the runway, sold for $1,875. ^[139] A red and black mermaid gown with feather pattern from the retail collection and a black and white houndstooth coat from Look 7 each sold for $2,812. ^{[140] [141]} A quilted gray silk coat reminiscent of the bubble wrap coat from Look 43 sold for $5,625. ^[142] Fashion dealer Steven Philip auctioned a number of archival McQueen pieces in 2023, including two from the retail collection of The Horn of Plenty. ^[143] A houndstooth ensemble sold for £3,600, while a red and black blouse sold for £1,600. ^{[144] [145]}

Museum ownership and exhibitions

Four ensembles from The Horn of Plenty appeared in Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty , a retrospective exhibition of McQueen's designs shown in 2011 at the Met and in 2015 at the V&A. ^{[36] [146]} Look 17, a black synthetic dress paired with black leather corset; Look 34, a black leather jacket with fox fur sleeves paired with a black leather skirt; Look 45, the black duck dress; and the basket hat by Philip Treacy for Look 36 appeared in the original staging. ^[147] Other looks were added for the 2015 staging, including the white duck feather dress. ^[148]

Two items owned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art appeared in the museum's exhibition Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse, originally staged in 2022: Look 15, a black dress-and-blouse ensemble made to resemble a bin bag, and a copy of Look 29, the red dress with swallow print. ^[149] When the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Australia restaged Mind, Mythos, Muse, they added garments from their own collection: a copy of Look 29, a red dress with swallow print and black coordinating boots, and a black and white houndstooth cape from the retail collection. ^{[150] [151] [152]}

A 2011 replica of Look 39, owned by the V&A, appeared in the 2012 exhibition British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age at the V&A, juxtaposed with a photograph of McQueen working on the runway original. ^{[153] [154]} Look 43 appeared in the 2013 exhibition Punk: Chaos to Couture at the Met. ^[155] The Museum at FIT owns a copy of the same red and black mermaid gown sold by Zuiker, purchased in 2016. It has appeared in the exhibitions Force of Nature (2017) and Exhibitionism: 50 Years of the Museum at FIT (2019). ^[156]

See also

• Trashion, fashion created from actual trash

Notes

1. Some sources incorrectly report that the aluminum can headpieces were made by Treacy. ^{[80] [15]} Both backstage photographer Robert Fairer and makeup artist Peter Philips have stated that they were made by Palau. ^{[47] [81]}
2. Waplington says McQueen recruited him in 2007, but he was not living in Jerusalem until 2008. ^[85] 2007 would also have been well before The Horn of Plenty was created.
3. The auction listing for a pair of silver discs originally for Irere (Spring/Summer 2003) claims they were worn on the runway for The Horn of Plenty, but they are not visible in any of the runway photographs from Vogue. ^{[54] [135]}

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External links

• "Women's 2009". Alexander McQueen. Archived from the original on 25 October 2010. Retrieved 6 November 2010.
• Alexander McQueen | Women's Autumn/Winter 2009 | Runway Show on YouTube
• Behind the scenes photographs by Joseph Bennett