Deliverance is the twenty-third collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, released for the Spring/Summer 2004 season of his eponymous fashion house. The collection was inspired by the 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, which portrays desperate participants in a dance marathon during the Great Depression. The collection and accompanying show use the dance marathon concept to express McQueen's exhaustion with fame and the fashion industry.
The collection comprised three distinct phases inspired by the film and the clothing of the Depression: eveningwear recalled the glamour of Old Hollywood before the crash, colourful sportswear, and faded daywear in utilitarian fabrics evoking exhaustion and hopelessness. McQueen's signature tailoring featured throughout, and he returned to several concepts from previous collections; he also presented new developments such as bias-cut dresses. Menswear drew from 1930s American workwear.
The runway show was staged on 10 October 2003 at the Salle Wagram auditorium in Paris, with production by McQueen's usual creative team. Unlike a traditional fashion show, Deliverance was presented as a faux dance marathon in three phases, with professional dancers accompanying the models and choreography by ballet dancer Michael Clark. Over eighty looks were presented. The show ended with a model feigning collapse in the centre of the stage before being carried offstage.
Critical reception was positive, especially for the runway show, although there was some backlash to the idea of using the Great Depression as inspiration for high-end fashion. Academic analysis has considered the dance marathon theme as a symbol of death and decay, and items from Deliverance have appeared in exhibitions.
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. McQueen began his career as an apprentice on Savile Row, which earned him a reputation as an expert tailor. From October 1996 to October 2001, McQueen wasin addition to his responsibilities for his own labelhead designer at French fashion house Givenchy.
McQueen's personal fixations and interests were a throughline in his career, and he returned to certain ideas and visual motifs repeatedly. His collections were historicist, in that he adapted historical designs and narratives, and self-referential, in that he revisited and reworked ideas between collections. As a cinemaphile, he drew on his favourite films to inspire his collections. McQueen was fascinated with death and memento mori.
McQueen had a difficult relationship with the fashion industry, which he sometimes described as toxic and suffocating. He was often ambivalent about continuing his work as a designer. 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." He told Vassi Chamberlain of Tatler that he felt he was "in a glass box". McQueen made several collections throughout his career that critiqued the fashion industry, going back as early as 1997. Mid-career, Voss (Spring/Summer 2001) and What A Merry-Go-Round (Autumn/Winter 2001) used imagery associated with insane asylums and circuses to portray fashion as chaotic and deranged. His second-to-last completed collection, The Horn of Plenty (Autumn/Winter 2009), satirised the concept of a runway show and the wastefulness of the fashion cycle.
Concept and creative process
Deliverance (Spring/Summer 2004) is the twenty-third collection McQueen designed for his eponymous fashion house. The collection was inspired by one of McQueen's favourite films, the 1969 tragedy They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, which portrays a lengthy dance marathon during the Great Depression. Hoping to win prize money, the desperate participants risk their well-being by dancing for weeks on end, urged on by the affluent paying audience and the cruel emcee who runs the show. The collection and accompanying show use the dance marathon concept to express McQueen's exhaustion with the never-ending need for designers to produce new collections to drive sales. He may also have been speaking about his difficulties with success and fame; Susannah Frankel felt he was thinking of "man's futile quest for capital at the expense of dignity, and of the flawed and ultimately alienating belief that fame, money, or class leads to a better life." In a subsequent interview, McQueen described the show as a statement about his feelings about America at the time, saying "it's in a scary place".
With this inspiration in mind, the clothing in the collection is a romantic interpretation of Depression-era fashion across three phases. The first recalled the glamour of Old Hollywood before the stock market crash that precipitated the Depression. The second portion drew on sportswear. The final phase returned to silhouettes from the first, but rendered in faded colours and utilitarian fabrics, indicating the exhaustion and despair of the Depression. McQueen's customarily sharp tailoring was relaxed somewhat for the collection in order to allow the models in the runway show to move freely. Because they were meant to be in a dance competition, the men had competitor numbers pinned to their backs.
The first phase mainly comprised glamorous eveningwear as well as shorter cocktail and day dresses. Long evening gowns were shown in satin and lamé; in a new development for McQueen, many were cut on the bias to allow the fabric to flow and drape. Some had a "mermaid" silhouette: fitted to the body and flared at the bottom, resembling a mermaid tail. Other dresses had full skirts in tulle and feathers. One orange dress was cut so low in the back that it exposed the intergluteal cleft like McQueen's early bumster trousers. There were also 1930s-style skirt suits and ensembles with satin pants or crystal-studded stockings. Swarovski crystals, sequins, beads, embroidery, and feathers were all used for embellishments. In this phase, the competitor numbers were rendered in crystal. Some ensembles were accessorised with feather boas.
The sportswear phase featured bright colours and loud patterns, all with minimal tailoring to encourage movement. Models wore tight bodysuits, sequinned hotpants, and relaxed casual dresses. For footwear they had kitten heels or trainers. Some items were inspired by sports jerseys, with patterns of jersey numbers as a visual motif. Other aesthetic flourishes here included cut-outs, flounces, floral patterns, and racing stripes.The daywear in the final phase was intended to suggest exhaustion and hopelessness through a transition to distressed garments in patchworks of faded colours and patterns. Utilitarian fabrics like denim, jersey, and cotton madras recalled the 1930s workwear that was adopted into the clothing style referred to as Americana. Unusually, these fabrics were used for tightly tailored, sensual designs rather than plain workwear. Some items had inlays of flesh-toned see-through fabric that made the designs look as though they were falling apart. Plain day dresses were given rounded Claudine collars. Floral patterns reappeared on dresses, muted to the point of resembling watercolours.
The menswear in the collection was taken from workwear and Americana. McQueen drew inspiration from the sailor characters in Querelle, a 1982 erotic art film, and the pimps and criminals described in the 1948 novel Our Lady of the Flowers. The men in the first phase wore muscle shirts and baggy pleated trousers, while in the second, they wore tank tops, shorts, and trainers, in accordance with its more athletic theme.
As was common for McQueen, several items were revisions of concepts from recent seasons. From The Dance of the Twisted Bull (Spring/Summer 2002), he returned to lace-up hipster pants and a ruffled, bias-cut dress made of diamond-shaped pieces of fabric sewn together. A chiffon top in the style of Marie Antoinette returned from Supercalifragilistic-expialidocious (Autumn/Winter 2002), and moss-green breeches and a black chiffon all-in-one were taken from Scanners (Autumn/Winter 2003).
Runway show Production details
The runway show for Deliverance was staged on 10 October 2003 at the Salle Wagram auditorium in Paris, which had hosted boxing and dance events in the 19th century. The venue had red velvet curtains, crystal chandeliers, wood panelling, and Greek-style frescoes on the walls; McQueen added a disco ball for the show. The invitation was a cardboard medication packet. Gainsbury & Whiting oversaw production while Katy England managed styling. Joseph Bennett returned to handle set design. The Guido Palau styled hair, while Val Garland was responsible for make-up. Philip Treacy, McQueen's usual milliner, provided hats.
The show was conceived as a faux dance marathon in three phases, choreographed by ballet dancer Michael Clark with assistance from Les Child. McQueen told Paris Mode that he had always wanted to incorporate dance into his productions, and had been inspired by watching a film of Clark's choreography that reminded him of the emotional content in his own shows. The incorporation of choreography was a departure from fashion show norms, and required the casting of professional dancers to be paired with the models, most of whom had minimal dance experience.
Clark and Child cast twenty male dancers, most trained in contemporary dance with a few ballet dancers; they were paired in the show with twenty female models. Casting director Jess Hallett described McQueen as wanting a very specific look for the models, even selecting one woman himself off the street because she had what he thought was "a very 1930s face". McQueen also cast Karen Elson, with whom he had worked before, when developing the concept for the show. The training and rehearsal process for the show was two weeks long; Child recalled it as gruelling, especially for the models, most of whom lacked experience with dance. Elson sat out the rest of the season's shows in order to complete the training; Child recalled her as being "very keen" and described her performance as "brilliant".
For the show, make-up was kept fairly minimal. Models were sprayed with water rather than powdered, and additional cream was added for later phases to make them appear to be shining with sweat. Eye make-up was a variety of bright pastel tones. Men were styled with Brilliantined hair, as was common in the 1930s.
The soundtrack comprised a mix of big band and disco songs. Portions were borrowed from the soundtracks of The Cotton Club (1984) and The Color Purple (1985). The music was overlaid with occasional sirens and excerpts of the emcee's dialogue from They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, such as his exhortation to participants that "they must keep moving, they must keep dancing at all times".
Catwalk presentation