The Birds (Alexander McQueen collection)

British designer Alexander McQueen was known in the fashion industry for his imaginative, sometimes controversial designs, and dramatic fashion shows.[3] He began his career in fashion as an apprentice with Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard before briefly joining Gieves & Hawkes as a pattern cutter.[4][5] His work on Savile Row earned him a reputation as an expert tailor.[6] In September 1990, at the age of 21, he was accepted to the masters-level course in fashion design at Central Saint Martins (CSM), a London art school.[7][8] McQueen met a number of his future collaborators at CSM, including Simon Ungless.[9] He graduated with his master's degree in fashion design in 1992. His graduation collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims, was bought in its entirety by magazine editor Isabella Blow, who became his mentor and his muse.[10]

McQueen's reputation for shocking runway shows began early. The sexualised clothing and aggressive styling in his first professional show, Nihilism (Spring/Summer 1994), was described by The Independent as a "horror show".[11] The follow-up, Banshee (Autumn/Winter 1994), featured a model pretending to put a finger in her vagina on the runway.[12] His collections as an independent designer were created on extremely minimal budgets as he did not have financial backing. He purchased whatever cheap fabric or fabric scraps were available.[13] Collaborators often worked for minimal pay or were paid in garments. Some agreed to work for free because they were interested in working with McQueen, while others who had been promised compensation were simply never paid.[14][15] Many actually wound up paying out of pocket for things like fabric and notions.[16] McQueen was so poor at the time of The Birds that he had to borrow money to pay for a cab to get to the show.[17]

The collection had a multi-layered inspiration.[18] The greatest part came from ornithology, the study of birds, and the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds, for which it was named.[9] McQueen was a film buff and many of his collections were inspired by his favorites.[19] The Birds also took inspiration from the mathematically inspired art of Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher, who used birds and other animals as tiles in artistic tessellations.[18][20][21] Car accidents and roadkill served as an additional inspiration.[22] Ungless designed a print of tire tracks to be used on many of the garments, inspired by scenes in The Birds where the characters flee the attacking birds in cars.[13] The design echoed the rationale behind McQueen's use of locusts on garments in his earlier collection Nihilism (Spring/Summer 1994): "Complete chaos and human vulnerability in the face of nature gone wrong".[13]

Fleet Bigwood, a CSM instructor, contributed to fabric design.[23] Fashion designer Andrew Groves, who McQueen dated from 1994 to 1996, worked on the collection after McQueen found out Groves could sew.[24] McQueen enlisted Ungless to create printed fabric based on Escher's designs, and Ungless, now a print technician at CSM, stole fabric from the school to use as a base.[9][25] The original concept Ungless laid out for the bird prints was deemed "awful – like a Christmas card gone wrong", and Groves was tapped to replace it.[13] The design he came up with depicted black silhouettes of swallows in flight, a popular motif in classic skinhead subculture and nautical tattoos, representing endurance and courage.[13][18][26] The print most prominently appeared on Look 33, on a burnt orange jacket, and Look 43, on an orange-red pencil skirt.[27] It also appeared on a white frock coat, the show's final ensemble.[1] Fashion historian Alistair O’Neill saw the print as depicting swallows mid-dive, which he believed was a reference to a scene in Hitchcock's film where birds invade a home by diving down the chimney.[27]

Many of McQueen's designs for The Birds, particularly the tight pencil skirts and wasp-waisted jackets, emulated the tightly tailored 1950s fashion worn by the film's star, Tippi Hedren, although he avoided directly copying her outfit.[9][13][28] Ungless described McQueen as fascinated by the way Hedren was made vulnerable by her constricting clothing, and sought to take the effect to an extreme.[13] Some models found the garments difficult to walk in on the runway.[29] Despite the extensive presence of tailoring, Groves later suggested that McQueen's time as a theatrical costumier had more influence on this collection than his time on Savile Row.[18] McQueen's bumsters, an extremely low-cut trouser that exposed the top of the intergluteal cleft, made an appearance in several outfits, including in wet-look black for Look 43.[9]

McQueen often designed spontaneously, right on the dressmaker's dummy, and did so for many of the looks in The Birds. Groves described watching him create an entire dress on the stand in approximately an hour, working from raw materials, without any realization that this was a highly unconventional method.[30] Look 35, a dress made of clear pallet wrap, had a similar origin.[1] It was inspired by a sexual encounter Groves had some years prior, in which the other man wrapped Groves in pallet wrap, immobilizing him. Some weeks after Groves told McQueen about the incident, the two were walking on the street when McQueen spotted a discarded bolt of pallet wrap and took it home to make a dress.[31]

Look 35, dress made from pallet wrap and tied with string, worn over black bikini underwear, model unknown

The runway show was staged on 9 October 1994 during London Fashion Week. The venue was Bagley's, a warehouse in the London district of King's Cross. It was known for hosting raves, and was allegedly owned by British organized crime.[30][31][32] McQueen was able to secure the warehouse for only ₤500.[30] The show's invite was a black and white photograph of a baby bird lying on a roadway, apparently run over.[33] Jewellery designer Simon Costin had asked to do the set design in exchange for also lending accessories for the show. McQueen readily agreed, especially since Costin offered to work for free and the show's budget was, as Costin later put it, "something like fifty pounds".[34] Because of the limited budget, the set was kept simple: a black backdrop and a straight black concrete runway with white slashes meant to look like road markings, inspired by the tire tread pattern found on some of the clothing.[34][22][29] Models entered through a short backlit tunnel at the rear of the stage.[22]

McQueen found a stylist to help him oversee the models' looks for the runway show: Katy England, then working for British magazine Dazed & Confused.[21][35] As with Costin, England also had no experience in the role; McQueen selected her based on having seen her at shows in stylish outfits.[36] In addition to her styling duties, she also served as a fit model for many of the garments.[36] England added a few outside garments for the runway show, including leather jackets.[35]

The styling for the models was explicitly sexual, with many designs exposing underwear or bare breasts. One look consisted solely of a silver lamé jacket over lace underwear.[17] Look 35, the clear pallet wrap dress, was worn with nothing but black bikini underwear, and the model's upper thighs were tied with string to create a pencil skirt effect.[1][17] The models wore stiletto heels attached to their feet with packing tape; these were simply cheap shoes bought from charity shops with the uppers removed to leave only the soles and heels.[36][37] The accessories Costin supplied included pieces made from jet, enamel, and cockerel feathers, including one black feathered dickey worn over a gold shift dress.[22][38]

Makeup was styled by Australian artist Val Garland, and was kept light: skin was pale and lips were orange-red.[34][38] Eugene Souleiman styled hair, with McQueen requesting "destruction" as the aesthetic.[34] Souleiman opted not to emulate Hedren's iconic bouffant updo, as McQueen would have found the visual homage "too obvious".[34] Souleiman decided to have the models' hair blow-dried straight and the ends crimped to fluffiness, creating a floating effect while they walked the runway.[34][29] Just before the show, McQueen decided to add tire tracks to some of the models to make it look as though they had been run over.[29][34] They used a tire from his assistant's car, covered it in grease, and rolled it over the models before they got dressed. This effect is most clearly seen in Look 12, a frock coat worn with nothing but a pair of high-cut briefs.[9][22][34] Some models were given opaque white full-eye contact lenses to give them a dehumanized look.[34] These were custom-made at significant cost, paid for by Derek Anderson, a supporter of McQueen's from New York City who worked in public relations and helped fund many of McQueen's early projects.[39]

McQueen had generated a great deal of excitement about the show in the media, and there was a long lineup to get in.[40] The majority of the audience were fashion students and ravers, however – the fashion establishment was not yet interested in McQueen, and the few industry professionals who attended mostly did so at the behest of Isabella Blow.[40][41] The tight budget did not allow for any security, and one of McQueen's public relations people had to manage the rowdy crowd.[41] Both of McQueen's parents were in attendance, although his father – who was not entirely comfortable with McQueen's choice of career – turned up late, stayed at the back of the venue, and left without speaking to his son.[40][42][43] The show started 90 minutes late.[41] It ended with the audience on their feet screaming.[42]

Fashion writer Plum Sykes, then an assistant at British Vogue, modelled Look 33.[33][27] South African corsetmaker Mr. Pearl, who had met McQueen at a King's Cross club, walked the runway in Look 40, a tailored short jacket, shirt and tie, and tight red pencil skirt with the swallow print.[27][44][40] His corset-trained waist was only 18 inches at the time.[18] It was the first time McQueen had a male model walk in one of his shows.[44] Mr. Pearl later called the experience boring and said he had never been paid, but that he was "pleased to have met" McQueen.[40] Madonna was rumored to have purchased the jacket modelled by Mr. Pearl.[45]

Journalist Dana Thomas reports that the reviews were extremely positive, particularly with regards to McQueen's sharp tailoring.[42] Both The Times and the Evening Standard called the show the "hottest ticket" of London Fashion Week that season.[46][47] Writing for the Evening Standard, Alison Veness called the close-cut designs "sharp enough to draw blood".[47] In a short review for The Globe and Mail, David Livingstone wrote that McQueen had "achieved heights of lowdown style," with "attitude anchored in skill".[48] Women's Wear Daily highlighted the blatant sexuality and streetwear elements as well as McQueen's tailoring, stating that "McQueen can cut with the best of them".[49] In an overview of British designers for Fashion Week, Iain R. Webb wrote that McQueen's "sense of the macabre has the international fashion set screaming for more".[50]

Other reviewers weren't so uniformly impressed. Although Amy Spindler of The New York Times found the tailored jackets excellent and acknowledged that McQueen was generating the most discussion of any designer in London that season, she was critical of the pencil skirts and bumster trousers, saying "It is strange to see so talented a designer committed to the unwearable".[17][29] Barbara Weiser, of the now-defunct Charivari boutique chain, attended the show and described the collection as unimaginative and uncreative.[17]

The show is regarded positively in retrospect. Fashion journalist Hamish Bowles described the show as "a revelation" in 1999.[40] He revisited the collection in 2010 after McQueen's death, calling it the point that he realized McQueen's potential to change the status quo of fashion.[40] In a 2015 retrospective, Vogue highlighted the aesthetic of destruction in the collection and noted it had been a recurring theme in McQueen's fashion throughout his career.[1]

Following the show, Italian fashion manufacturer Eo Bocci offered to purchase 51% of McQueen's label for ₤10,000. McQueen refused, as he wanted to retain control of the company.[17] Instead, they agreed on a pair of related contracts: the first gave Bocci distribution rights for McQueen's label for the next fifteen years, and the second made Bocci responsible for arranging manufacturing for McQueen.[51] The money from the deal with Bocci gave McQueen the funding to stage his next show, Highland Rape (Autumn/Winter 1995), the collection which effectively made his name.[52][17]

Many of the people who worked on The Birds went on to become regular collaborators.[38][18] Stylist Katy England, who worked with McQueen until 2007, became known as his "second opinion".[21][53] Simon Ungless worked on prints for later collections, including Highland Rape and Dante (Autumn/Winter 1996).[54] Simon Costin worked with McQueen regularly until the designer's death in February 2010.[55] Val Garland styled makeup for several future shows, including The Dance of the Twisted Bull (Spring/Summer 2002) and In Memory of Elizabeth How, Salem 1692 (Autumn/Winter 2007).[56] Eugene Souleiman returned to style hair for Scanners (Autumn/Winter 2003) and The Widows of Culloden (Autumn/Winter 2006), among others.[57]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) in New York City owns the orange jacket from Look 33. It appeared in both stagings of Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, at The Met in 2011 and at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2015.[58] It also appeared in The Met's 2016 exhibit Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion.[58]

Birds, wings, and feathers were a recurring theme in McQueen's work throughout his career, particularly in La Dame Bleue (Spring/Summer 2008), whose stage was illuminated by giant blue neon wings, and The Horn of Plenty (Autumn/Winter 2009), which featured women in feathered dresses and a reworked version of the swallows print from The Birds.[59][60][61] Cinema also remained a significant influence; future collections such as Deliverance (Spring/Summer 2004) and The Man Who Knew Too Much (Autumn/Winter 2005) took direct visual cues from the films which inspired them.[62][63] In fact, one look from The Man Who Knew Too Much, is a clear duplicate of Tippi Hedren's outfit from The Birds, a reference he had avoided making in the eponymous collection.[28]

Much of the critical analysis of The Birds revolves around the depiction of women as apparent victims of violence, especially in light of the sexualized styling of the clothing.[64] The show drew accusations that the presentation was misogynistic, not for the first or the last time in McQueen's career.[18][65][66] McQueen objected to this characterization, arguing that his designs were meant to make women look "stronger".[67]

Fashion historian Caroline Evans positioned the extreme styling of The Birds as typical of independent British fashion designers in the 1990s. At the time, the industry was poorly supported and funding was scarce. Young designers took to creating shocking runway shows to generate press coverage in the hopes of attracting backers. Evans suggests that once McQueen found sufficient backing, he pivoted the styling of his shows from violent to theatrical.[68] Diana Villanueva Romero analysed the collection from an ecofeminist perspective, arguing that although McQueen had previously presented women as victims of violence, it was only with The Birds that McQueen had "for the first time, situated women as substitutes for animal victims".[69] In her view, McQueen was presenting a connection between the cruelty suffered by both women and animals in order to denounce this violence.[69] In an opinion piece for Fangoria, author Vanessa Guerrero argued that McQueen's presentation in The Birds subverted the 1960s aesthetic by making the models "less the standard chic, pretty little things, and more things to dread".[64] Guerrero believed the indicia of violence – torn clothes, white eyes, and tire tracks – made the models intimidating, and therefore McQueen was positioning women as empowered survivors.[64]

Alistair O'Neill focused on the collection as it related to Hitchcock. McQueen referenced several of the director's films throughout his career, exploring what O'Neill called "representations of femininity and how they are challenged through transformation scenes".[27] For O'Neill, the reappearance of the swallows print on the skirt worn by Mr. Pearl was McQueen's way of "translating femininity through artifice from one body to another".[27] He argued that by having a man walk in a womenswear show wearing womenswear, McQueen was disrupting the "ordered sense of femininity" typical of catwalk shows.[27]

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