Plato's Atlantis is the thirty-fifth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, released for the Spring/Summer 2010 season of his eponymous fashion house. Drawing on climate change, evolutionary theory, and his love of diving, McQueen envisioned a world where humans had evolved using biological engineering to survive underwater after the sea level rose and flooded the earth. The designs depict the transition of humans from terrestrial to oceanic across two main phases, using a saturated colour palette, elaborate digital prints, and intricate garment construction. Plato's Atlantis is known for its unique platform shoes, especially the armadillo shoes, with their spike heels.
Forty-five looks were presented at the runway show, which was staged on 6 October 2009 at the Palais omnisports de Paris-Bercy in Paris. Two cameras on robotic mounts were placed on tracks on the stage, projecting the show and the audience to a large screen at the rear of the stage as well as capturing it for a livestream. Hair and make-up was used to make the models appear increasingly inhuman as the show went on. The show served as the debut of the Lady Gaga single "Bad Romance", and she wore the show's final outfit in the song's music video.
Plato's Atlantis is widely remembered as one of McQueen's greatest achievements for its blend of natural and technological elements, runway showmanship, and pioneering attempt at live-streaming. It was his final fully-realised mainline collection; he committed suicide in February 2010. Academic analysis has focused on the digital technology, animal imagery and environmental messaging, and its status as McQueen's final finished collection. The collection was a retail success and popular with celebrities on the red carpet. Ensembles from Plato's Atlantis 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. 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 learned tailoring as an apprentice on Savile Row, and dressmaking as head designer at French fashion house Givenchy. Although he worked in ready-to-wear – clothing produced for retail sale – his showpiece designs featured a degree of craftsmanship that verged on haute couture. His collections were historicist, in that he adapted historical designs and narratives, and self-referential, in that he revisited and reworked ideas between collections.
McQueen's personal fixations had a strong influence on his designs, especially his love of the natural world, which he referenced visually and by incorporating natural materials. His wide-ranging reference library included volumes of National Geographic, scientific illustrations, and photographic studies. His affinity for water and the ocean was lifelong: he enjoyed diving, and his house by the sea had multiple aquariums. This oceanic fascination was reflected in his career from its earliest stages, with runway shows that included water features and designs inspired by marine life. His final three completed collections, including Plato's Atlantis, explored his concerns about human impact on the environment and the wastefulness of the fashion cycle. Complex digitally engineered prints featured in all three. As a cinephile, he also drew on his favourite films to inspire his collections.
McQueen described the fashion industry as toxic and suffocating, and was often ambivalent about continuing his career. He expressed his disillusionment through collections that critiqued the industry. By the mid to late 2000s, he had reached a point of exhaustion, but feared putting his employees out of work if he stepped down from his brand. His personal life had become increasingly unstable by the time he was working on Plato's Atlantis. His reliance on drugs had become a serious concern, and he was openly discussing suicide, although he chose to press on with his work.
Concept and collection Inspiration and development
Plato's Atlantis (Spring/Summer 2010) is the thirty-fifth collection McQueen made for his eponymous fashion house. It is his final fully-realised mainline collection; he committed suicide in February 2010. Its name comes from the allegorical sunken island of Atlantis, described in the works of the Greek philosopher Plato. McQueen thought of Atlantis as a "sanctuary in bad times". McQueen conceived the collection while on vacation in Thailand with his friend Annabelle Neilson. Drawing on climate change, evolutionary theory, and his love of diving, McQueen envisioned a world where humans had evolved using biological engineering to survive underwater after the sea level rose and flooded the earth. He also drew from the brightly coloured marine life drawings of Ernst Haeckel and the James Cameron film The Abyss (1989), in which a dive team discovers an alien city at the bottom of the sea and undergo a spiritual awakening.
In many ways, Plato's Atlantis expands on techniques of printing and construction which McQueen pioneered in Natural Dis-tinction Un-natural Selection (Spring/Summer 2009). The thirty-six unique prints made for Plato's Atlantis were more colourful and elaborate compared to those in its predecessor. McQueen normally liked to adapt ideas from historical fashion and art, but took a different tack for Plato's Atlantis. He had his team assemble inspiration boards showing aerial views of the earth, brightly coloured marine life, rusted shipwrecks, figures draped in silver cloth, and reflective surfaces. There were stills from The Abyss as well as Terminator 2 (1991), showing the titular character in its liquid-metal form. Partway through the process, he had the boards turned around to display the prints he had developed for the collection, saying he wanted to abandon referencing entirely and make something new.
Collection
Plato's Atlantis depicts the transition of humans from terrestrial to oceanic across two main phases, using a saturated colour palette, elaborate digital prints, and intricate garment construction. Fifteen of the forty-five looks presented on the runway were so complex that they were intended only as showpieces. The first phase features designs that use earth tones and patterns based on snakeskin and moths to evoke the appearance of land animals or vegetation. The second phase primarily uses more abstracted prints in shades of blue and aqua. These were derived from sea creatures and aerial views of the ocean and Great Barrier Reef, suggesting an adaptation to an increasingly submerged planet.
The primary silhouette, which recurs in several variations, was an hourglass-shaped minidress with round shoulders and a bell-shaped skirt, somewhat reminiscent of a jellyfish. The shape is an evolution of the structured minidresses of Natural Dis-tinction Un-natural Selection. Intricate folding created structure at the shoulders, skirts, and especially the hips, which were also emphasised in other ways. Some items had broad pannier-like hip extensions, while the placement of hexagonal hip sequins on other items resembled pollen baskets on bees. The folds on some items resembled gills.
While the majority of items presented were minidresses, some looks featured trousers or all-in-ones. Other silhouettes included so-called "stingray" jackets made to resemble the animal. Some skirts and leggings were based on scuba diving gear, with thick dark fabrics, rubberised looks, or laser-cut leather details. Sequined leggings reminded Jonathan Faiers of shed snake skins. Despite McQueen's desire to focus on new ideas, some historical elements remained, particularly his signature frock coat. Journalist Dana Thomas remarked that one of the scuba-based outfits had proportions from Elizabethan era fashion.
A variety of textiles were used, ranging from lighter fabrics like chiffon, taffeta, and organza, as well as somewhat heavier ones like jersey, mohair, velvet, and printed jacquard. The fil coupé technique, in which an additional set of weft threads is added to create floating decorative elements on the textile’s surface, was used to merge different textiles like velvet and chiffon into one surface. Decorative embellishments included hand-sewn scale-like paillettes and embroidery designed to look like corroded metal. Hexagons recurred as a decorative motif.
Some tailored looks in the aquatic section played on the hybridisation theme by combining two fabrics and methods of working. The sleeves were tailored grey wool more typical of menswear, but the bodies were draped printed jersey. One of these featured a print entitled "Abyss" after the Cameron film. A series of showpiece ensembles at the end of the show was made from blue iridescent gauze. Structure was added by hand-stitching metallic thread throughout. Looks 41 and 42 were tops paired with white-pink iridescent sequined leggings, while 43 and 44 were minidresses. The closing outfit, nicknamed "Neptune's Daughter" or the "Jellyfish ensemble", was a dress with matching leggings and armadillo shoes, covered entirely in enormous blue-green opalescent sequins. It represented the final stage of humanity's adaptation to an underwater environment.
Shoes
The collection is known for its three unique styles of platform shoes, referred to as the armadillo shoe, the alien shoe, and the Titanic shoe. The armadillo and alien styles drew inspiration from the biomechanical art of H. R. Giger, known for visually developing the Alien movies. These two styles were showpieces created for the runway and were not commercially produced, although many pairs of the armadillo heels were sold to private buyers following the show.
The armadillo shoes are almost from top to sole, with a spike heel. The body of the shoe is a convex curve, often compared to the silhouette of an armadillo or lobster claw. The shoe hides the entire foot from ankle to toe, creating the illusion that the wearer is walking en pointe in the manner of a ballerina. In actuality, the ball of the foot rests at an angle on a concealed platform, with a small bulge above the toe to facilitate lifting the heavy shoe to walk. Twenty pairs were worn in the runway show, with one extra. Each pair is decorated to match the theme of its outfit: some are covered with animal skin such as python skin or shagreen (rawhide from the cowtail stingray), while others have iridescent paillettes resembling scales. Three models refused to walk in the show due to concerns about falling.
The ridged biomorphic appearance of the alien shoes draws on the Xenomorph monster from the Alien movies, with a spine that spirals up the heel and around the sole and a finger crossing over the toe box. They also evoke the unusual skeletal structures of deep-sea fish. They were 3D printed from resin. Eleven pairs were made for the runway, in shades ranging from bone white to silver to blue.
The Titanic shoes reference the 1912 sinking of the ocean liner RMS Titanic. Their heels were made from pieces of metal riveted together, visually evoking its riveted steel hull. Holes punched in the metal also called to mind Meccano, a British construction set consisting of metal pieces. This style had a matching metal handbag.
Production