Bridge 4 by newschool26

UNDERSTANDING HOW ALEXANDER MCQUEEN’S 2001 “VOSS” SHOW PLACED A BIAS AGAINST PEOPLE IN MENTAL HOSPITALS

Ashley Conway Int Sem 2: C11: Sp18 May 4, 2018

In the year 2000 in London, an audience sat around a massive mirrored cube. The audience was forced to wait for over an hour for the actual show. While sitting and waiting, they were accompanied by the sound of an intense heartbeat playing over the speakers and only themselves to look at through the mirrors in front of them. After the long delay, the box lit up to reveal what one might see in a padded cell in a psychiatric ward. The floor was made up of white sterile tile, the room was lit by harsh fluorescent lights, and the walls were lined with padding and cold two-sided mirrors that the models inside could not see out of. This depiction of a mental hospital was fashion designer Alexander McQueen’s “Voss” Spring/Summer fashion show. Alexander McQueen used this portrayal of a mental hospital as a theatrical setting to display his garments on female models that acted as though they were suffering mentally. Although some may see these finely crafted garments as magnificent, the way they were presented to an audience of fashion elites and celebrities placed a preconceived notion of what people in mental hospitals look like and act. Therefore, fashion designers choices on how to display their garments can cause a bias toward their overall concept, which in this case, is people in mental hospitals. Many designers overtime, naturally, find inspiration for their pieces from the world around them. A recurring theme in design/art is to create pieces that revolve around a larger issue. People in mental hospitals have been depicted by artists and designers for a long time. Before Alexander McQueen there was The Madhouse by Francisco de Goya. Goya was a Spanish painter in the 18th and early 19th century. In 1812 he painted The Madhouse which was a painting of how men were mistreated in a mental asylum in Spain in the 18th century. Goya’s goal as an artist was to show the

incarceration and torment of the shackled men placed in the asylum. Perhaps this painting was one of the first forms of social activism against maltreatment in mental hospitals and the stigma of people being crazy or monstrous if they are put into the hospital. Rather than romanticize the people in mental hospitals the way McQueen did, Goya showed a more realistic and raw interpretation of the people there. This problem of romanticizing certain groups is common in fashion design. Especially in fashion design and shows, designers take ideas from certain cultures, communities, and institutions like hospitals, prisons, and churches and present them in ways that can be offensive. These misconstrued ideas made by the designer can be offensive to certain groups of people. The garments crafted by Alexander McQueen and the portrayal of patients in mental hospitals performed by the models help the audience understand how these things are stigmatized. All of the models wore a white fabric around their heads, masking their hair and making them look as if they were covered in bandages due to head damage. Every model was given a different persona and instructed, by McQueen, to act a certain way on the runway. Model Erin O’Connor wore a white dress made of sharp and ridged mussel shells. McQueen told O’Connor to “...Go mental. Have a nervous breakdown. Die. And then come back to life.”1 O’Connor took McQueen’s instruction, went to the end of the runway, and ran her hands from the bottom of the sharp dress to the top. She put her hands up above her head as if she were stretching and didn’t care about the sharp materials that her hands just grazed over. As she raised her hands, running them against the knifelike shells, pieces of the mussel shells came off of the dress. Using this performance piece, we can see just how little we know about what happens inside of a mental hospital. One of the first things they do in a mental hospital is take away any and all sharp objects. They will also try to diagnose you with something

SHOWStudio, Subjective: Erin O’Connor interviewed by Nick Knight about Alexander McQueen S/S 01, 2014, youtube.com

like depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, etc. The very idea of being mentally ill is a broad one. Norah Vincent, someone who spent a large portion of her time in a mental hospital said, “And what is “mentally ill,” anyway? What can it mean to say that someone is mentally ill when the DSM, the psycho-bible, is, in my and many other far more qualified people’s estimation, not a scientific document, but rather an entirely subjective and seemingly infinitely amendable and expandable laundry list of catchall terms for collections of symptoms.”2 I think that when McQueen tried to give each model a persona, he was generalizing them the same way doctors and bystanders alike perceive people in mental hospitals, once again creating an overall stigma. Many other pieces in the show were depicted in different ways. Every little detail of the garments were given a great amount of attention to. Anther model that closely resembled a wounded bird, wore a skirt made from ostrich feathers that had been dyed, two very strong colors, red and black. The top that went with this skirt was made from slides for a microscope that have been painted red to represent blood. Another birdlike model walked onto the floor, with taxidermied birds of prey floating around her head off of her shoulders. She almost resembles a damsel in distress figure that one might see in Albert Hitchcock’s The Birds. She pretends to act fearful of the birds that are holding bits of the fabric from her dress using their talons. What is interesting about McQueen is that he wanted to empower women. Dana Thomas, who wrote a book about the life of McQueen said that

Norah Vincent, Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin, Penguin Group, London 2008

“He didn’t want to put women on a pedestal like untouchable, unreachable goddesses. He wanted to empower them and help them use the force of their sexuality to the fullest.”3 We have seen Alexander McQueen live up to this idea in some shows like the Spring/Summer 2010: Armadillo Crossing, where women were dressed like tall alien figures that walked powerfully down the runway. But this show is something that paints overly dramatized depictions of women acting easily scared, distressed, and unhinged, which is not how a powerful woman is usually depicted or portrayed. Perhaps the most interesting and shocking part of the show was the dramatic and haunting finale. A metal box within the middle of the stage fell open from every side and violently shattered the glass. The box released what seemed like hundreds of moths that immediately began to flutter toward the fluorescent lights. But within the box there was a naked overweight woman. The woman had a mask that covered her entire face with horn like figures on top. She casually laid slouched on her side looking at the floor. She had tubes coming from her mask which led to the ceiling. This shock-factor at the end of the show did come as a surprise. But rather than show something empowering, realistic, or even scary, he shows a woman completely separate from the rest of the skinny and styled models that were shown. She depicted more of a human science experiment than a mental patient. Where Alexander McQueen failed, designer Kerby Jean-Raymond succeeded. In 2016, 15 years after the McQueen show, Jean-Raymond introduced his fall line via the runway in a small venue in New York City. Much like McQueen, he was trying to set the scene in order to send a

Dana Thomas, Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, Penguin Books, London, 2016 3

message that was beyond just selling garments to an audience. The show tackled the problems many young people have with depression, mental illness, and suicide ideation. The show ended with a tribute to a young Black Lives Matter activist named MarShawn McCarrel II that suffered mentally and commit suicide on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse earlier that week.4 He wanted to explain to his audience that if people had been there to help him and understand his inner struggles, he would still be here today. But Jean-Raymond stated that the show “...has nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter movement. We're dealing with a real human emotion which is depression and that happens to everyone no matter the color.”5 People of all sizes, color, and heights walked down the runway to trap-opera. A mix of trap music and opera sung by a choir. One model carried a picket sign that said, “MY DEMONS WON TODAY I’M SORRY.” Another model walked down the runway in sweatpants, a fur coat with smiley face pins on it, and a sweatshirt that listed common side-effects of depression. McQueen brought a group of people together to engage in a overly dramatized and untrue depiction of people in mental hospitals in order to make profit off of his garments and name. Kerby Jean-Raymond brought people together with powerful music and messages that people could relate to rather than make false judgements of. Overtime, it is easy to see why people romanticize things like mental hospitals and it is because people are drawn toward what is mysterious and not fully understood. Pliny the Elder, a natural philosopher from ancient Rome made a statement that stands true to this day.

Mary Bowerman, Black Lives Matter activist commits suicide on Ohio Statehouse steps, 2016, Usatoday.com Kerby Jean-Raymond, Kerby Jean-Raymond Teams Up with Erykah Badu for a Runway Show to Raise Awareness About Mental Health, 2016, Elle.com 5

“It is extraordinary [Pliny wrote] that when the price given for works of art has risen so enormously, that art itself should have lost its claim to our respect. The truth is that the aim of the artist, as of everyone else in our times, is to gain money, not fame as in the old days, when the noblest of their nation thought art one of the paths to glory…”6 The death of Alexander McQueen, suicide by hanging, made many ponder whether or not he romanticized mental illness enough to where he thought suicide was an option. It also cautioned other designers to be careful as creative people and what messages to send to an audience. There is possibly a link between those who are mentally ill and their creativity. Norah Vincent spoke about how writing a novel slowly drove her into madness. Perhaps the idea of romanticizing certain things to make them more interesting is what Alexander McQueen did thus leading him into a romanticized madness. Although Alexander McQueen did commit suicide, it is important to not place him on a pedestal because he is linked with mental illness and success in his designs. James C. Kaufman, a professor and psychologist states that, “...how do we know that a sampling bias does not intrude such that those creative geniuses who are mentally ill are more likely to have biographies written about them… After all, the lives of crazy creators make more interesting stories than the lives of normal creators.”7 Alexander McQueen presumably may have came up with the idea that people in mental hospitals were monstrous creative individuals that were suffering. This still makes me wonder, why did he make this falsified depiction in his 2001 show so unrealistic if he were

Margot and Rudolf Wittkower, Born Under Saturn: The Character and Conduct of Artists, The New York Review of Books, New York, 2007 7 James C. Kaufman, Creativity and Mental Illness, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, 2014 p. 37 6

suffering too? Was it purely for money and attention? Or was it purely a performance piece for an audience made up of people like Gwyneth Paltrow and other fashion elites? The “Voss” show was an impactful visual display placed into the fashion world in the year 2000. People now look back at the show and see the fundamental flaws of how the garments were displayed, but also pay attention to how successful of a designer McQueen was. By watching this exaggerated fashion show about patients in mental hospitals, it is easy for me to see how designer clothing is not enough to sell to a group of people. The message being sent with the clothing is just as important. I can understand how designers like Kerby Jean-Raymond and other future designers will want to create more social activism with their clothing to start a conversation against the stigma surrounding the mentally ill, rather than treating it like a mysterious and untouchable issue. Fashion design continues to push boundaries, rightfully and wrongfully, but Alexander McQueen’s show placed a bias against the patients in mental hospitals by showing it to an audience of very influential and judgmental people, allowing for them to see beauty and horror in a topic that is very common.

Illustrations

Figure 1: Alexander McQueen Voss Set

Figure 2: Erin Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connor in Mussel Dress

Figure 3: Model in Feather and Microscope Garment

Figure 4: Model Underneath Taxidermied Birds

Figure 5: Nude Model Lays with Tubes and Mask

Figure 6: Kerby Jean-Raymond Picket Sign

Figure 7: Kerby Jean-Raymond Garments

Annotated Bibliography

Primary Goya, Francisco De. The Madhouse. 1812. 46 cm x 73 cm. Real Acadamia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, Spain. McQueen, Alexander. “Alexander McQueen | Women's Spring/Summer 2001 | Runway Show.” Youtube Video. 11.42, March 21, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qynzgm9i4LI. McQueen, Alexander. “Alexander McQueen | Women's Spring/Summer 2010 | Runway Show.” Youtube Video. 17.12, March 15, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkvVgvaKJgA. O’Connor, Erin. “Subjective: Erin O’Connor interviewed by Nick Knight about Alexander McQueen S/S 01.” Youtube Video.11.58, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOHsm0EawM4 Secondary Ogunnaike, Nikki. “Kerby Jean-Raymond Teams Up with Erykah Badu for a Runway Show to Raise Awareness About Mental Health.” Elle.com. February 14, 2016. https://www.elle.com/fashion/a34079/pyer-moss-fall-2016-show-interview/. This source is not scholarly, but it is important in my research question. Thinking about how other designers have tackled mental illness and its activism is important to help me for my studio project. This article talks about Kerby Jean-Raymond’s runway show and how it introduces ideas of depression, mental illness, and race.A excerpt from the article that I thought would be helpful to my paper is”… a male model walked the runway carrying a sign that read "My demons won today I'm sorry," a reference to a final Facebook post by activist MarShawn McCarrel II."Had he had people in his life who understood depression is a real thing and understood that people deal with it everyday and people deal with it in different ways and mask it more times than actually resolve it," Jean-Raymond posits, "he would have probably still been around." Kaufman, James C. Creativity and Mental Illness. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. This scholarly book is by James C. Kaufman, a professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut. The book delves into the question “are creative people more likely to be mentally ill?”This basic question has been debated for thousands of years, with the 'mad genius' concept

advanced by such luminaries as Aristotle. There are many studies that argue the answer is 'yes', and several prominent scholars who argue strongly for a connection. The book also argues that the two traits, mental illness and creativity, are not related. Thomas, Dana. Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. London: Penguin Press. 2016. This is a book by Paris-based American Journalist Dana Thomas. The book touches on the lives of John Galliano and Alexander McQueen. She talks about how their lives lead up to their success in the fashion world. She also talks about their highly intricate designs and theatrical runway shows. The book includes one on one interviews with both designers and how much of their work and creative processes are linked. She quotes both of the designers and explains their backgrounds to help the reader get a deeper understanding of who the designer is and where they come from. Ultimately it shows how brilliant and successful designers can also struggle mentally.

Vincent, Norah. Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin. London: Penguin Press. 2008. This book is a true story about a person that considers themself a “creative” that ends up visiting the mental hospital more than once. It is an insider’s perspective on what really happens inside of a mental hospital and shows that even people who are considered to be normal can visit the mental hospital for long periods at a time. I wanted to use this novel in my paper because I think it is a non-romanticized view of mental health. She is very real about her experience and very real about how people perceive her. Wittkower, Margot and Rudolf. Born Under Saturn: The Character and Conduct of Artists. New York: The New York Review of Books. 2007. This book helps us to understand the link between creative people and madness. It shows a wide range of creative people and their madness overtime and how it has been depicted by philosophers. This book is helpful in my research because it goes against how James C. Kaufman says that mental illness and creativity are probably not linked in his scholarly book, Creativity and Mental Illness. It also gives a wider view on why people and artists alike may choose to romanticize things like madness and see creatives as godlike figures.