The Hunger is the seventh collection by British designer Alexander McQueen, released for the Spring/Summer 1996 season of his eponymous fashion house. The collection was primarily inspired by The Hunger, a 1983 erotic horror film about vampires. McQueen had limited financial backing, so the collection was created on a minimal budget. Typically for McQueen in the early stages of his career, the collection centred around sharply tailored garments and emphasised female sexuality. It was his first collection to include menswear.
The runway show for The Hunger was staged at London's Natural History Museum on 23 October 1995, during London Fashion Week. Like McQueen's previous professional shows, The Hunger was styled with imagery of sexuality, violence, and death, most prominently a corset of translucent plastic with real worms encased within. Models bared their breasts and flashed obscene gestures on the runway, and the show concluded with McQueen mooning the audience.
Critical reception to The Hunger was mixed. Some reviewers found it a highlight of a dull season, while others denigrated McQueen's perceived immaturity as a designer. Some repeated accusations that McQueen's work was misogynist. Retrospective analysis has focused on the cinematic inspiration behind the collection and the gothic imagery of the worm corset. Many of the people who worked on The Hunger with McQueen would go on to become longtime collaborators. Garments from The Hunger appeared in both stagings of the retrospective exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.
Background British fashion designer Alexander McQueen was known for his imaginative, sometimes controversial designs, and dramatic fashion shows. Over the course of his career, which lasted from 1992 until his death in 2010, he explored a broad range of ideas and themes, particularly sexuality, death, violence, romanticism, and historicism. He began as an apprentice on Savile Row, earning a reputation as an expert tailor. In October 1990, at the age of 21, McQueen began the masters-level course in fashion design at Central Saint Martins (CSM), a London art school. McQueen met a number of his future collaborators at CSM, including printmaker Simon Ungless and Sebastian Pons. He also cultivated an interest in outdoing fellow British designer John Galliano, whose work was known for being creative and theatrical.
McQueen graduated with his master's in 1992. His degree collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims, was bought in its entirety by magazine editor Isabella Blow, who became his mentor and his muse. 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". The follow-up, Banshee (Autumn/Winter 1994), featured a model pretending to put a finger in her vagina on the runway. McQueen's sixth collection, Highland Rape (Autumn/Winter 1995), drew accusations of misogyny. The resulting controversy is considered to be the launching point of McQueen's fame and has been credited with leading to his appointment as head designer at French luxury fashion house Givenchy.
At the beginning of his career, McQueen had no financial backing, so his earliest collections were created on minimal budgets. He purchased whatever cheap fabric or fabric scraps were available. 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 and knew he could not afford to pay them anyway, while others who had been promised compensation were simply never paid.
Concept and creative process Financial backing
Following the success of The Birds (Spring/Summer 1995), McQueen had secured some funding from Eo Bocci, an Italian fashion manufacturer. Bocci arranged a distribution deal from Bus Stop, a subsidiary of Japanese apparel firm Onward Kashiyama. The contract with Bus Stop mandated the inclusion of menswear, a first for McQueen's career. Production for the collection was handled by Milanese manufacturer MA Commerciale. Fleet Bigwood, a CSM lecturer, contributed to fabric design.
Despite the financial backing, McQueen was still operating under financial constraints. As with previous collections, most of McQueen's collaborators on The Hunger worked for little to no pay, believing the exposure and the chance to work with McQueen was valuable in itself. Simon Ungless agreed to a low fee of £500 to design prints. Pons, aware that McQueen was living in poverty, "never asked him for any money", under the assumption that "it was going to pay off in the long term".
Inspiration and styling The Hunger is the seventh collection by McQueen for his eponymous fashion house, for the Spring/Summer 1996 season. It was inspired by the erotic horror films The Hunger (1983), which featured a love triangle between two vampires and a human doctor, and Cat People (1982), in which a young woman discovers she is a seductive werecat. As was typical for McQueen, the collection focused on sharp tailoring, experimental materials, and strategically-bared skin. Prior to the show, he stated that his intention was to produce "wearable clothes" that balanced artistic expression with commercial concerns. He told his friend and collaborator Pons that he "wanted to break some rules and do something a bit shocking".
The collection's palette was mainly red, white, and black. McQueen made use of natural materials such as leather and feathers, and incorporated nature-themed prints with designs of leopard spots, thorns, and feathers. Other, more modern or unconventional materials also appeared. Textile consultant Kim Hassler was asked to produce a sweater made of fur from McQueen's mother's dog. The feather print used on the jacket from Look 29 was created using a photo emulsion process on a nylon silkscreen. Normally the silkscreen would be used to print duplicates, but McQueen simply made it into the coat, although it was not intended for this purpose.
Sexuality was front and centre. One of the men's shirts featured a graffiti-style design that referenced the sexual act of fisting. Many garments featured extreme cutouts and slashes, exposing the lining or the model's bare flesh. Menswear and womenswear alike had cuts which exposed breasts and thighs. Depending on the placement, the slashes visually evoked the vulva or self-harm by cutting, which McQueen sometimes engaged in. The low-cut bumster trousers for which McQueen had become famous made an appearance in both men's and women's wear. The rest of the menswear primarily comprised short-sleeved button-up dress shirts, flat-front trousers, and leather jackets.
Some elements pointed back at his graduation collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims, including sharply-pointed collars, smears of blood, trimmings that imitated human flesh, and prints of thorns. In The Hunger, the visual motif of spilled blood evoked folklore about vampires drinking and exchanging blood. The most significant piece from the collection is a moulded corset created from two layers of translucent plastic encasing real worms, juxtaposing sexuality with imagery suggesting decay. The layers were pre-moulded on a fit model, and McQueen assembled the corset with fresh, live worms two hours before the runway show.
Runway show
Production details
The runway show for The Hunger was staged on 23 October 1995 during London Fashion Week. McQueen was assigned the desirable finale slot on the strength of his previous show, Highland Rape. The venue was a tent on the East Lawn at the Natural History Museum of London. McQueen had by this time become such a strong draw that some people attempted to gain entry to his shows with photocopied invitations. Attendance for The Hunger was reportedly up 30% compared to the previous season. Despite the financial support from Bocci, the budget for the runway show was reportedly only £600. In response to criticism of Highland Rape, McQueen uninvited several fashion journalists to The Hunger, and relegated at least one other to an undesirable third-row seat. McQueen's mother and his aunt Renee had front row seats.
McQueen often worked with friends and acquaintances, and The Hunger was no exception. Icelandic singer Björk, then dating McQueen's musician friend Goldie, produced the show's soundtrack. Goldie was recruited to walk in the show, along with other people in McQueen's social circle: Susanne Oberbeck of pop band No Bra, Jimmy Pursey of punk band Sham 69, and journalist Alix Sharkey. Milliner Philip Treacy, another of Blow's protégés, provided headpieces; it was the first of many collaborations. Many other personnel had worked with McQueen on previous shows. Eugene Souleiman and Val Garland returned to style models' hair and make-up, respectively. The runway show for The Hunger was dedicated to McQueen's friend Katy England, who was by then serving as his creative director. Sam Gainsbury, who had served as casting director for The Birds, produced the show.
Jeweller Shaun Leane, who had worked on Highland Rape, created accessories for the runway show of The Hunger. The silver jewellery he made was intended to evoke animality and hunger; Leane later recalled that McQueen had directed him to "create something that kind of creates a little bit of an edge between all the girls". Leane created two major designs for The Hunger. The "Tusk" earring was a long, thin curve of silver worn singly rather than paired. Leane called the second major design the "stag piece", a thorny silver ring which encircled the hips.
Catwalk presentation The runway for The Hunger was plain white, with no set dressing. Journalist Dana Thomas described the soundtrack as "thumping club music punctuated with monkey howls". Makeup was cat-like, with eyebrows drawn up the forehead in exaggerated slashes, and hair was done in styles of the 1980s: mullets and Mohican haircuts. As with McQueen's previous runway shows, the styling for the models was explicitly sexual; outfits were cut to expose undergarments or breasts. Models were encouraged once again to display attitude on the runway: many made obscene gestures toward the audience such as the finger or V sign. Others flashed their breasts from beneath jackets worn with no shirt.
The Hunger comprised 95 looks, 28 of which were menswear, mixed in with the womenswear. Tailored jackets and trousers dominated the first half, while the second half focused on softer dresses and skirts. Stella Tennant wore Look 22, a white shift with a print of a leopard on the lower half. Looks 32 and 50, a midi-length dress and a two-piece ensemble, were made from silver mesh and paired with full-face coverings created by Treacy that resembled fencing masks. Look 35, a white midi-length dress, had a midsection roughly printed black, with its over-layer slit from breasts to navel; the overall effect has been compared to the vulva. The worm corset appeared as Look 64, styled with a tailored grey jacket and red silk skirt, with a silver hip piece by Shaun Leane worn over the skirt.
At the end of the show, McQueen mooned the audience, which he later explained as a gesture of frustration with the high expectations and limited support given to him by the British Fashion Council and the press.
Reception