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After water came fire. Joan was named for Joan of Arc, the teenage saint who was burned at the stake, and it ended with one of the most famous images in fashion.
McQueen layered one tragedy on another. Alongside Joan he used the murdered Romanov children, whose portraits were printed on dresses and tops. The models looked otherworldly, with bald caps or braids pulled tight across the head and blood-red contact lenses. The clothes were armour for a martyr: metal mesh and chainmail, black leather suits, sharp tailoring borrowed from menswear, cashmere and red and black sequins. The palette was almost entirely black, red and silver.
Then the finale. A model walked out alone in a dress of red bugle beads that covered her body and her whole face. She stood still while a ring of flames rose from the floor around her. As the fire burned, Diana Ross sang “you’re gonna make it”. It was terrifying and strangely hopeful.
The red dress has been revisited by Sarah Burton and by Seán McGirr since, and it still has all its power. Joan is McQueen as a storyteller at full strength: history, horror and beauty in the same breath.
Pictures courtesy of Vogue Runway
We do not own the rights to any of these images and they have been used in good faith. Every effort has been made to ensure that all images are used with proper credits. If you are the rightful owner of any image used on our site and wish to have it removed, please contact us at ayerhsmagazine@gmail.com and we will promptly remove it. We are a non-commercial, passion-driven, independent fashion blog and do not intend to infringe any copyright. Thank you for your understanding.
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