Alexander McQueen Autumn/Winter 2009 'The Horn of Plenty': Couture from the Debris
For Autumn/Winter 2009, Alexander McQueen transformed Paris Fashion Week into an unruly reckoning with fashion’s own appetite for novelty. The Horn of Plenty, subtitled Everything But the Kitchen Sink, staged luxury against the waste and visual excess that its industry can generate.
Photo: Marcio Madeira / Vogue.
The Collection
Photo: Marcio Madeira / Vogue.
The garments quoted and distorted familiar couture codes. Oversized houndstooth was fractured into graphic patterns, severe tailoring was pushed into hyperbolic proportion, and sculptural eveningwear played with materials that resembled rubbish bags or shattered objects. McQueen’s references to Dior-era polish became a deliberate act of visual sabotage, not mere imitation.
Photo: Marcio Madeira / Vogue.
Runway and Presentation
A dramatic heap of discarded objects occupied the center of the presentation: crushed parts, broken fairground horses, chairs and other fragments, including materials associated with earlier McQueen shows. Models circulated around the refuse in high-platform shoes and surreal headwear, including pieces that transformed humble domestic forms into extraordinary accessories.
Photo: Marcio Madeira / Vogue.
Why It Matters
Photo: Marcio Madeira / Vogue.
By recycling theatrical props and dismantling the icons of glamour, the show questioned whether fashion could acknowledge its own excess without surrendering its power to astonish. It is a landmark of McQueen’s late-period critique of taste, consumer culture and the fragility of fashion imagery.
Photo: Marcio Madeira / Vogue.
Watch the Official Runway Film
Photo: Marcio Madeira / Vogue.
Film: McQueen official runway film. Embedded from the original YouTube channel; availability depends on the uploader’s embedding settings.
Photo: Marcio Madeira / Vogue.
Research and Official References
Photo: Marcio Madeira / Vogue.
Photo: Marcio Madeira / Vogue.
Comments