no. 13
No. 13 – named as such because it was the designer’s 13th show – was McQueen’s most open tribute to the Arts and Crafts Movement, the main protagonists of which interested him throughout his career.
SETTING
Show was staged at Gatliff Warehouse, an unused former bus depot in Victoria, for the spring/summer 1999 season.The world’s most important buyers and press walked in to find a ground-level set made out of nothing more grand than unvarnished floorboards with a lowered, lit ceiling suspended above it and all quietly took their seats.
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The Show
Designs were constructed in predominantly natural tones including tan, beige and ivory and used everything from raffia, for intricate bodices and fringed skirts, to balsa-wood, cut into strips and punched then manipulated into delicate fan-like designs, and from tiered, ruffled lace to leather.
The Impact
It’s not news that London Fashion Week in the mid- to late-90s was home to fashion shows more akin to performance art than any traditional runway presentation. This was the heyday of Brit Art, Brit Pop. McQueen’s shows were every bit as impactful as Oasis’ Definitely Maybe or Sensation at the Royal Academy, No. 13 perhaps most of all.
There were several set pieces in the show which, incidentally, lasted over 20 minutes, which is unprecedented by today’s standards. The first two of these featured models spinning on circular disks at the four corners of the stage like precious music-box dolls dressed in gauzy silks or metal mesh that sparkled in the light.
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Above all, though, No. 13 will be remembered for its finale, featuring Shalom Harlow, a former ballerina, dancing on a fifth, centrally placed disk, between two metal robots hired from a car manufacturing plant. Their interaction began gently before the level of menace increased and the model’s pure white cotton trapeze dress was sprayed black and yellow as she turned.
The latter formed asymmetric belts, corsets and moulded harnessing, often crudely stitched, and inspired by the workshops of Queen Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton, which pioneered prosthetics for those injured during World War I.
These invested a gentle and romantic vision with the typically tough, even sinister undertones that characterised McQueen’s greatest work. Shoes, too, had a vaguely orthopaedic look about them. And McQueen had good reason for that.