The Widows of Culloden

The runway show for The Widows of Culloden was staged on 3 March 2006 at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in Paris, and was dedicated to Isabella Blow.[20][42] The invitations for the Widows show were black and white, with a print of an Edwardian cameo and the title of the show rendered in Scottish Gaelic: Bantraich de cuil lodair.[29] Seating was so limited that the show was actually staged twice in one night to accommodate all the guests.[52][53]

McQueen typically worked with a consistent creative team for his shows, and Widows was no exception.[54] McQueen's creative director Katy England was responsible for the show's overall styling, Eugene Souleiman styled hair, and Charlotte Tilbury styled make-up, which was kept minimal and neutrally toned.[43][55][56] Production was handled by Gainsbury & Whiting, and John Gosling was responsible for soundtrack design.[43][57] Widows marked a return to theatricality for McQueen, whose shows in the preceding two seasons – The Man Who Knew Too Much (Autumn/Winter 2005) and Neptune (Spring/Summer 2006) – had been comparatively conventional.[20][31][58]

Gosling's soundtrack incorporates songs from the 1993 film The Piano, scored by Michael Nyman; Scottish bagpipes and drums, various punk rock tracks, and a sound effect of howling wind.[20][35] McQueen intended to use a track commissioned from Nyman for the finale, but dropped it in favour of a song from the soundtrack of the 1993 film Schindler's List.[lower-alpha 1][20][61] Scottish historian Murray Pittock wrote that the use of the Schindler's List song "suggested an analogy between Culloden and the Holocaust".[62]

Excerpt of the illusion of Kate Moss

Audience members entered the space through a large glass pyramid.[31] Seats were arranged around a square stage of rough wood, reminiscent of the wooden stage in his collection No. 13 (Spring/Summer 1999). Another glass pyramid was placed in the centre of the square, leaving a catwalk in which the models walked counter-clockwise.[31][63] In contrast to Highland Rape, when the models staggered or stalked angrily down the runway, the models in Widows moved in a stoic, upright manner which Gleason described as "the attitude of warrior princesses".[31][45]

Widows of Culloden comprised fifty-one ensembles across three broad phases, each look worn by a different model.[63][58] The show opened with dresses, sweaters, and tailored suits in tweeds, Aran knits, and brocades of muted neutral shades.[27][29][58][64] The next phase comprised dark-coloured outfits with a focus on tartan and black leather, followed by a series of black evening gowns sometimes taken as mourning dresses.[17][41][64][65] The final looks were a set of lighter-coloured gowns, some of which were worn with frock coats.[64][66] The show closed with a Pepper's ghost illusion within the glass pyramid, featuring a life-sized projection of Kate Moss, an English model and friend of McQueen's, wearing a billowing chiffon dress.[20] It was the first fashion show to employ this kind of illusory effect.[67] After the illusion ended, as a curtain call, all the models walked the runway in a parade to the Donna Summer song "Last Dance" (1978), followed by McQueen.[58][68]

Look 25 at Mind, Mythos, Muse

McQueen's work was highly autobiographical: he incorporated elements of his memories, feelings, and personal fixations into his designs and runway shows.[91][92] Widows, with its emotional focus on both McQueen's and Scotland's history, is generally regarded as one of his most autobiographical collections.[32][93][94] Deborah Bell, a professor of costume design, cited curator Andrew Bolton in noting that the "romantic version of historic narrative" from Highland Rape and Widows was "profoundly autobiographical" for McQueen, and suggests this is the reason that it was so impactful.[95] Fashion theorists Paul Jobling, Philippa Nesbitt, and Angelene Wong called the collection "a personal reckoning with [McQueen's] own past", particularly his relationships with his mother, sister, and Isabella Blow.[96] Women's Wear Daily noted that "the clothes seemed perfectly to describe McQueen's own eccentric point of view".[18]

Historical references are a major component of The Widows of Culloden, resulting in critical discussion over whether the collection is modernist or historicist. Cultural theorist Monika Seidl discussed Widows as a collection in the vein of Romanticism, a 19th century movement which emphasised emotion and glorification of the past.[97] She cites it as an example of fashion that "self-confidently plays around with time when fragments from the past are blatantly and visibly reactivated as the new look of the moment".[98] Cathy Horyn of The New York Times argues that McQueen was "a storyteller", which positioned him as anti-modernist.[99] She criticised the historical elements in Widows as an unnecessary obstacle between McQueen and his designs.[99] Historian Jack Gann argued that, in effect, it was both: the modern and historical elements combined to show that "perception of our place in time is simultaneously of multiple eras".[100]

Costume curator Lilia Destin noted that the collection subverted typical historical narratives by decentring warriors in favour of their widows, and wrote that it "awards their ghosts a sense of transhistorical agency through memory".[101] Jobling, Nesbitt, and Wong argued that McQueen's description of Widows as more "triumphant" than Highland Rape actually indicates that the widows are celebrating, not mourning, the deaths of their husbands.[102] Historian Timothy Campbell wrote about Highland Rape and Widows in the coda to his 2016 book Historical Style, describing them as counter-arguments to the notion that traumatic events in history must be experienced only in a state of grief. In Campbell's words, "McQueen suggests, Culloden must first be resurrected or remade as something other than tragedy in order to be historically impactful".[103]

Outfits from Highland Rape, Autumn/Winter 1995–96, presented at Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty

Widows served as a counterpart to Highland Rape, which was also heavily inspired by Scottish culture. In comparison, Widows has been described as less angry and more reflective.[1][20][30] McQueen himself reflected that Widows displayed a more positive view of Scotland, and related the difference to his own mental health, saying "I'm in a much clearer head space now than I was when I did the Highland."[23] The collections were discussed together in a 2014 BBC Alba documentary, McQueen of Scots, which explored McQueen's Scottish heritage and its influence on his designs.[104]

Art historian Ghislaine Wood wrote that the "two collections provided contrasting but cathartic narratives on specific historical events ... and in many ways they reflect the complexity and drama of McQueen's vision".[23] Author Katherine Gleason wrote that the use of tartan in Widows was "more polished, softened with ruffles and embroidery".[45] To Lisa Armstrong, the restrained nature of Widows, compared to the overt political rage of Highland Rape, was a sign of maturity.[47] Murray Pittock viewed both collections as part of the evolution and worldwide dissemination of tartan since the 1990s.[49]

While softer than Highland Rape, Widows is nonetheless interpreted as a statement about the appropriation of Scottish culture in a wider British context. McQueen's use of tartan in Widows, and the anglicised aspects of the designs, has been viewed as an exploration of the commodification of tartan in high fashion and British culture.[7][15][105] Pittock noted that the wide-ranging visual elements of Widows "symbolically commented on the destruction, misprision and exploitative reinterpretation of Scotland for a global audience".[49] For American fashion editor Robin Givhan, the use of tartan "hinted at the rebellion of the punk movement without embracing its anger".[85]

Critics have described The Widows of Culloden as an exploration of Gothic literary tropes through fashion, and some have compared it to specific works of classic literature.[106] Gothic fiction, as an offshoot of Romantic literature, emphasises feelings of the sublime and the melancholy, but is set apart by its focus on fear and death.[107][108] It is distinguished from other supernatural genres by its focus on the present as a state inevitably haunted by the past: literally, in the form of ghosts, as well as metaphorically, through memories and secrets.[108][109][110]

In McCaffrey's view, Widows exemplified melancholy – in the Gothic sense of "tensions between beauty and heartache" – through its visual staging.[31] The stoic performance of the models represented a dignified grief that he likened to "visions of gothic heroines stalking the candle-lit corridors of an ancient castle".[31] McCaffrey called the illusion of Kate Moss an example of highly staged melancholy, with every element contributing to the audience's emotional involvement.[31] Kate Bethune presented a similar analysis, noting that the collection's sense of melancholy was "consolidated in its memorable finale".[20] For Faiers, the models, and especially the Moss illusion, represented "the ghosts of the past unable to contend with the march of fashionable progress".[7] The Bird's Nest headdress and the Bird Skull headpiece from Looks 1 and 33 respectively have been discussed as a set which represents the cycle of life and death, and the fragility of beauty.[69]

Discussing McQueen's proclivity for the gothic more generally, the professor of literature Catherine Spooner highlighted his fascination with dark aspects of history. She noted that in several of his most historical collections, including Highland Rape, Widows, and In Memory of Elizabeth Howe, Salem, 1692 (Autumn/Winter 2007), the "distressed fabric; screen-printed photographs; fragments of historical dress disassembled and reordered" reflect the disturbing aspects of history he drew on for inspiration.[106] Author Chloe Fox wrote that McQueen had "mined the refined sense of an aristocratic past" to produce the collection.[42] Literature professor Fiona Robertson found that McQueen's Scottish collections and the historical novels of Scottish writer Walter Scott epitomised the Scottish style of gothic by focusing on the country's "broken and self-alienated national history".[111]

The mood of Widows may be read as part of a shift toward darkness and melancholy as an aesthetic in fashion, which some authors have argued was a response to global turmoil and increased nihilism following the turn of the century.[88][112][113] Art historian Bonnie English noted that McQueen was one of a number of major designers, including Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Yohji Yamamoto, and Marc Jacobs, who produced sombre collections for the Fall/Winter 2006 season.[114] In a 2019 New York Times essay discussing the cultural archetype of the melancholy woman, writer Leslie Jamison described Highland Rape and Widows as emblematic of an "aesthetic of suffering" in fashion.[115]

Miss Havisham from Dickens' Great Expectations

The lace gown with veiled antlers – the Widow's Weeds – has provoked significant critical response, much of which focused on the theatrical and animalistic effect created by the headdress.[116] McQueen later said that the look "worked because it looks like she's rammed the piece of lace with her antlers".[1] Lisa Skogh wrote that the veil over the antlers suggested a "dramatic bridal crown".[117] Watt described it as "creating a phantasmagorical hybrid beast-woman".[26] Author Sarah Heaton noted that the antlers "insist on the feminine relationship to the land, nature, and psyche".[118]

Both the antlered gown and the chiffon gown worn by Moss have been analysed as wedding dresses. From this perspective, the antlered gown has been read as especially ambiguous: the veil can be seen as entrapping, protecting, or concealing the bride who wears it.[73] It has drawn comparisons to the wedding dress obsessively worn by the spinster Miss Havisham in the novel Great Expectations (1861).[119][120]

Heaton, whose work focuses on the intersection between fashion and literature, described these two long white dresses as "revisionist" wedding gowns that evoke the Gothic to subvert its limitations.[75] In her view, the lace veil uplifted on the antlers of McQueen's ensemble is reminiscent of Miss Havisham's wedding veil, but where Miss Havisham's veil is shroud-like and grotesque, the veil of McQueen's design "suggests the strength of femininity".[121] The illusion of Moss, on the other hand, evokes the Gothic trope of the barefoot "mad woman"; normally this figure would be confined to an attic or asylum, but again McQueen subverts the expectation by displaying her to the public, making her ephemeral and uncontained.[121]

Cultural theorist Monika Seidl considered the same pair of gowns from a more critical perspective in 2009, arguing that they framed their wearers "as trophy and ... as victim".[122] For Seidl, far from presenting feminine strength, the antlers in combination with the gamekeepers' clothing referenced earlier in the show evoked an image of the bride as a hunting trophy.[122] She viewed the Moss illusion as presenting a contained "Wiedergänger" or vengeful spirit.[122] However, she described both dresses as persuasive in the way they "destabilise the notion of a bride".[122]

The look of the feathered outfits has been compared to the Harpy, a bird-woman from Greek mythology.

Post-humanist theorist Justyna Stępień argued that McQueen's use of unusual silhouettes and structures, particularly in Widows and Plato's Atlantis (Spring/Summer 2010), provoked an emotional reaction in the audience and forced them to reconsider their perception of the human body.[93]

Analysing McQueen's tendency to incorporate and reinterpret styles from various cultures, Esguerra and Hansen compared the use of Highland dress in Widows to the interpretation of Islamic dress in Eye (Spring/Summer 2000). They found that Widows succeeded because of McQueen's connection to Scottish culture, enabling him to present a collection with a strong narrative. In contrast, they felt that Eye suffered from a lack of personal knowledge, and came across as insensitive to the diversity of Islamic culture.[123]

In an analysis of fashion as a performative intersection of sex and gender, Paul Jobling, Philippa Nesbitt, and Angelene Wong examined Widows as a "poetic text" relating to McQueen's identity as a gay man, and his ideal of feminine empowerment through fashion.[94] They examined McQueen's use of feathers as a subversion and expansion of typical gender roles which see men as predators and women as prey. In their analysis, the models resemble bird-women in mythology, such as the Greek Harpy and the Russian Gamayun, who are beautiful yet dangerous threats to "phallocentric male power".[94] McQueen's use of animal motifs thus allows women to explore different types of femininity and female power, without being constrained to any particular binary.[124] They further argue that McQueen's combination of "masculine" tartan with "feminine" fabrics like lace is another subversion of the gender binary, allowing the widows to step into a liberated role following the deaths of their husbands.[102]

Writer Cassandra Atherton described using several McQueen collections, including Widows, in a university-level creative writing course to teach a connection between poetry and fashion, particularly how one can inspire the other.[125] Literature professor Mary Beth Tegan described using Highland Rape and Widows together in 2021 as a teaching aid to engage university students in the short story "The Highland Widow" by Walter Scott (1827).[126] She found that the "affective glamour of Gothic tale and fashion spectacle ... roused my students' interest and sustained their reflections" about both the story and the fashion.[127]

Portrait of Hugh Montgomerie, Later Twelfth Earl of Eglinton, John Singleton Copley (1780)

Several ensembles from Widows – at least five tartan looks, the pheasant feather dress, and the Widow's Weeds – 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.[1][145][146] The Kate Moss illusion made an appearance at both versions of the exhibition. In the original presentation at the Met, the illusion was recreated in miniature, but in the V&A restaging, it was presented in full size in its own room.[lower-alpha 2][148][149] The NGV displayed the collection donated by Campbell-Pretty in 2019 as the Krystyna Campbell-Pretty Fashion Gift. The exhibition included items from several McQueen collections, including Widows.[144]

Look 50, a floral ballgown, appeared in China: Through the Looking Glass, a 2015 exhibition at The Met.[150]

Items from the collection appeared in the 2022 exhibition Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse, first shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and later in expanded form at the National Gallery of Victoria.[151][152][153] Widows was placed in the Fashioned Narratives section of the exhibition, which highlighted collections focused on original and historical stories.[154]

Mind, Mythos, Muse compared one sleeveless dress with high-necked ruff and gold beading from the Widows collection to the ruffed and embroidered outfit worn by King Louis XIII of France in the painting Portrait of Louis XIII, King of France as a Boy by Flemish painter Frans Pourbus II (c. 1616).[151] Two tartan ensembles from the runway show were compared to a 1780 portrait of Hugh Montgomerie, 12th Earl of Eglinton by John Singleton Copley. During the time the portrait was painted, the wearing of tartan in Scotland was prohibited, except for soldiers and veterans, by the Dress Act of 1746. In Copley's painting, Montgomerie, wearing tartan, poses triumphantly over defeated Cherokee warriors. In reality, Montgomerie was not present at the battle being depicted, which occurred during the Anglo-Cherokee War in 1760; nor was it a British victory. The exhibition presents the Widows outfits as a counterpoint to the colonialist narrative in the portrait.[155]