What a Merry-Go-Round

British fashion designer Alexander McQueen was known for his imaginative, sometimes controversial designs, and dramatic fashion shows. During his nearly twenty-year career, he explored a broad range of ideas and themes, including romanticism, femininity, sexuality, and death. McQueen had a difficult relationship with the fashion industry, which he sometimes described as toxic and suffocating. He was often ambivalent about continuing his career in fashion. Several of McQueen's collections, including the preceding show, Voss (Spring/Summer 2001), were intended as commentary and critique on the industry. From 1996 to October 2001, McQueen wasin addition to his responsibilities for his own labelhead designer at French fashion house Givenchy, owned by luxury goods conglomerate LVMH. His time there was fraught, primarily because of creative differences between him, the label, and the management at LVMH. In December 2000, before his Givenchy contract ended, McQueen signed a deal with Gucci, an Italian fashion house and rival to Givenchy, effectively daring LVMH to fire him. Gucci bought 51 per cent of McQueen's company, retaining him as its creative director. What a Merry-Go-Round was the last collection he produced for his own label while with Givenchy. McQueen's career roughly paralleled that of fellow British designer John Galliano, who preceded him in the industry by about a decade. Their designs and shows were similarly creative and theatrical. During the period in which their careers overlapped, fashion journalists compared and contrasted their work and career choices, and they have sometimes been referred to as rivals. McQueen, who had a competitive streak, resented being compared to Galliano and often sought to emulate or outdo Galliano's ideas in his own work. == Concept and collection ==

What a Merry-Go-Round (Autumn/Winter 2001) is the eighteenth collection McQueen made for his eponymous fashion house. It was inspired by the dark underside of clowns, carnivals, and circuses, as well as the Child Catcher villain from the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). As was typical for McQueen, he pulled from his own life to inform his designs. In this case, he connected the vulnerability of childhood to his turbulent experiences with the fashion industry. McQueen explicitly drew on the fear of clowns in describing his vision: "We show children clowns as if they are funny. They're not. They're really scary." The carousel at the centre of the show represented the ride his career had been for the preceding year. Additional inspiration came from the German silent vampire film Nosferatu (1922) and the cabaret shows of Weimar Germany, by way of the film Cabaret (1972). McQueen intended the collection's designs to be relatively unified in order to allow him to build a consistent visual identity for his brand. He felt that previous collections had had too many ideas he had not fully capitalised on. Primary materials included leather and jersey, embellished with sequins, lace, and peacock and ostrich feathers. Many designs were reworked from earlier collections, including Joan (Autumn/Winter 1998), Eshu (Autumn/Winter 2000), and Voss. McQueen's interest in historical fashion was a strong influence on the collection. Large greatcoats and gold braid drew aesthetically on the French Revolution, while other items, particularly the bias cut sheath dresses, were influenced by the clothing worn by flappers of the 1920s. Textile curators Clarissa M. Esguerra and Michaela Hansen identified Look 44, a sequined dress with ruffles at the hips, as exemplary of this influence in the collection. They argued that it was McQueen's reinterpretation of the robe de style, a 1920s silhouette characterised by a straight-cut top with a more voluminous skirt at the hips. They saw the sequins and colours as reminiscent of Weimar cabaret. Several looks included accessories made from taxidermy pheasant claws clutching strings of Tahitian pearls, made by McQueen's longtime collaborator Shaun Leane. A classically-trained jeweller, Leane had to teach himself taxidermy in order to craft these items; he later replicated the pheasant claw earrings for his jewellery line. == Runway show ==

Production details The runway show was staged on 21 February 2001, at the Gatliff Road Warehouse in London. It was the last of six shows McQueen held there, and his final major show in his home city; all his future womenswear collections were staged in Paris. The invitations used an image by Ferdinando Scianna: an elderly-looking clown wearing a red, white, and blue outfit, echoing the tricoloured flag of France. The audience were first led into gated standing-room-only area which journalist Maggie Alderson derisively described as "holding pens", where they were made to wait for half an hour before being allowed to take their seats, to the irritation of many. Notable audience members included model Kate Moss, actress Bianca Jagger, media executive Nicholas Coleridge, and Domenico de Sole, then-CEO of Gucci. McQueen typically worked with a consistent creative team for his shows, which he planned with Katy England, his assistant and primary stylist. Gainsbury & Whiting oversaw production. Joseph Bennett, who had designed all of McQueen's runways since No. 13 (Spring/Summer 1999), returned for set design. Hair was styled by Guido Palau, with make-up by Val Garland. Philip Treacy created headpieces, while Shaun Leane was responsible for jewellery; both were longtime collaborators of McQueen's. Waterford Crystal produced a walking stick made from crystal and bone. Catwalk presentation The collection was presented in a dimly-lit room with a circular stage, the floor painted in a spiral of grey and blue. The centrepiece was a large antique carousel, the horses covered in black, purple, and lavender latex. At the rear, the stage was piled with childhood bric-à-brac including stuffed toys, puppets, balloons, and skeletons, all covered in dust, suggesting an old-fashioned child's nursery, a toy shop, or an attic filled with discarded possessions. Look 48 featured a helmet with large black feathers and decorative metal skull made by Philip Treacy, worn with a see-through slip of black with purple embroidery. Ana Honigman described the model as looking as though she were "half-siren and half-Valkyrie". Following Look 62, a black knit dress with white skull on the front, the lights went down, then came back up, illuminating the carousel as well as the decor at the rear of the stage. Several models styled as evil clowns with dark clown make-up and large wigs dusted with cobwebs cavorted around the stage, posing in their eveningwear. One of these models had a gold skeleton – originally a piece of set decoration from Dante (Autumn/Winter 1996) – attached to her ankle. Another wore a bias cut dress in silver which exposed the model's breast, reminiscent of the 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix. Erin O'Connor became entangled in balloons on the side of the stage while making her entrance, dragging them to the centre of the carousel. Other models cut the balloons away to free her. After several minutes, the lights came up fully and the models walked out to take their final turn, followed by McQueen taking his bow and shaking de Sole's hand. == Reception ==

Contemporary What a Merry-Go-Round was positively received by fashion critics upon its debut. De Sole, who would effectively be McQueen's manager at Gucci, called the collection "fantastic". Reviewers were generally pleased with the showmanship: Hilary Alexander wrote that it was "as striking as it was sinister", while Booth Moore at the Los Angeles Times called it "Broadway-worthy". Several felt it was the most exciting presentation of the season. Alexander complained that McQueen's was the only show worth seeing that Fashion Week, and wrote that it demonstrated "the huge gulf between a good designer and a genius". Despite the theatrics of the presentation, critics felt the designs had commercial potential, especially the draped dresses and tailored suits. John Davidson felt the clothing would be best for "confident, assured women prepared to stand out from the fashion crowd". Similarly, Lisa Armstrong felt McQueen's juxtaposition of opposing concepts was what made "his vision so modern". Menkes and Moore pointed to leather skirts cut in lace-like patterns, with Menkes especially charmed by one cut to show "a strutting peacock to echo a feathered bodice". Menkes felt McQueen was too young to be reworking his earlier designs, although she felt the results were very polished. The unnamed reviewer for the Ottawa Citizen wondered what the theatrics "have to do with clothes" Alderson also felt the lighting was too dark and the seats too far from the stage. Retrospective Writing in retrospect, curator Kate Bethune felt that the reworked designs from earlier collections indicated that McQueen had succeeded in creating a "consolidating collection". She found it commercial in a positive way, highlighting the wearability of the bias-cut dresses. In a 2015 retrospective, Dazed magazine called Merry-Go-Round one of McQueen's darkest shows. Fashion theorists Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas regard What a Merry-Go-Round as "unjustly overshadowed" by the preceding collection, Voss. Despite its positive reception, Merry-Go-Round was not one of McQueen's personal favourites. Shortly after the show, The New York Times quoted him as saying "it wasn't the strongest I've ever done". == Analysis ==

'' by Eugène Delacroix, 1830. Several authors believe a silver dress in the finale is a reference to this painting. Many authors regard elements of the collection as being aimed toward the management at French conglomerate LVMH, with whom McQueen had a turbulent relationship. Some contemporary reviewers commented along these lines, with the WWD review calling it an "unsubtle comment" on his disputes with them. Armstrong thought the skeleton was a "politically correct alternative to the fox stole". Groom described it as an indication that McQueen had given "his macabre sense of humour full rein". Author Kristin Knox called it an example of McQueen's "remanipulation of the macabre into a thing of true exquisite beauty". Evans considered the show an example of the double-sided nature of fashion: both frivolous and morbid at once in its transience. Geczy and Karaminas, picking up the thread of Evans' analysis, identified the performance aspect of Merry-Go-Round as an example of McQueen's "critically incisive" creative practice. The circus theme combined with the references to death and loss of innocence suggested to them a "world of fallen and jaded entertainers". They interpreted this as McQueen's commentary on the "imagined reality" of the fashion industry. They also compared the collection's narrative to that of The Overlook (Autumn/Winter 1999), which had a melancholy winter setting. They felt both collections suggested "the loss of childhood innocence". Valerie Steele wrote that the skeleton grasping the model's ankle was a reference to death symbolism in the Middle Ages. == Legacy ==

Merry-Go-Round marked the first appearance of the skull motif that became a signature of the brand. When McQueen and Leane participated in the Fashion in Motion series at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in 2001, they presented the pearl and pheasant necklace as one of their featured items. The pheasant claw and pearl necklace as well as the claw and pearl earrings from Look 60 were listed, but there is no final sale price noted for these items. The claw and pearl earrings from Look 32 sold for $13,750. A claw and pearl epaulette from Look 47 sold for $22,500. McQueen's friend Alice Smith auctioned a collection of McQueen memorabilia in 2020; an invitation from Merry-Go-Round sold for $334. == Notes ==