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Lot Essay
In 1998, McQueen stood at the apex of a new British vanguard—one that fused the severity of historical reference with the rawness of emotion. His Autumn/Winter 1998 collection, Joan, remains among the most intellectually charged and visually arresting works of late-20th-century fashion. At this point in his career, he was new to Givenchy but working through his own vision with a new toy box of tools in the Givenchy ateliers. He was still a bad boy but not yet accepted by Givenchy’s clients. He was on a knife edge but his tailoring and his vision remain clear in this ensemble.
The title itself invoked Joan of Arc—the sainted martyr whose faith and defiance of male authority led to her death by fire. McQueen, ever fascinated by women who endured and transcended violence, found in her story a mirror to his own creative tension between vulnerability and power. The collection’s armour-like tailoring, liquid red silks, and veils of metallic chainmail spoke to both protection and peril. Models appeared as warrior-saints, their bodies encased in sculpted jackets with razor-sharp shoulders and corseted waists, while the closing tableau—where flames licked around a glass-encased figure—reverberated as one of fashion’s most indelible images.
In the broader landscape of British fashion, McQueen’s importance lay in his unflinching confrontation with the body as a site of both beauty and disturbance. Where earlier generations had prized polish or eccentricity, McQueen introduced psychological intensity. His designs were not merely clothes but acts of storytelling: theatrical, scholarly, and often uncomfortably intimate. Alexander ‘Lee’ McQueen trained after Central St Martins in Savile Row at Anderson & Shepperd and this ensemble features tailored tweed – although not for a gentleman – for a woman’s evening gown and jacket. He takes the tailored dress and then slashes it so that the body peeps through the flesh-coloured tulle windows as he yokes together modesty and violence. It is a hall mark of his work.
Today, Joan endures as a touchstone not only for its technical achievement but for its narrative depth. It encapsulated the creative daring that would make McQueen the defining designer of his generation: a visionary who transformed clothing into modern myth.
The title itself invoked Joan of Arc—the sainted martyr whose faith and defiance of male authority led to her death by fire. McQueen, ever fascinated by women who endured and transcended violence, found in her story a mirror to his own creative tension between vulnerability and power. The collection’s armour-like tailoring, liquid red silks, and veils of metallic chainmail spoke to both protection and peril. Models appeared as warrior-saints, their bodies encased in sculpted jackets with razor-sharp shoulders and corseted waists, while the closing tableau—where flames licked around a glass-encased figure—reverberated as one of fashion’s most indelible images.
In the broader landscape of British fashion, McQueen’s importance lay in his unflinching confrontation with the body as a site of both beauty and disturbance. Where earlier generations had prized polish or eccentricity, McQueen introduced psychological intensity. His designs were not merely clothes but acts of storytelling: theatrical, scholarly, and often uncomfortably intimate. Alexander ‘Lee’ McQueen trained after Central St Martins in Savile Row at Anderson & Shepperd and this ensemble features tailored tweed – although not for a gentleman – for a woman’s evening gown and jacket. He takes the tailored dress and then slashes it so that the body peeps through the flesh-coloured tulle windows as he yokes together modesty and violence. It is a hall mark of his work.
Today, Joan endures as a touchstone not only for its technical achievement but for its narrative depth. It encapsulated the creative daring that would make McQueen the defining designer of his generation: a visionary who transformed clothing into modern myth.