Eshu is the sixteenth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, released for the Autumn/Winter 2000 season of his eponymous fashion house. Its name comes from Eshu, a trickster god in the Yoruba religion variously identified with travellers, luck, and death. Drawing on the twentieth century dress of the Yoruba people of West Africa, the collection presents an aesthetic of primitivism that contrasts couture techniques and luxury materials with distressed garments and an emphasis on animal materials. Many garments had silhouettes which were deliberately exaggerated away from Western norms, although others featured more conventional tailoring.
The runway show was staged on 15 February 2000 at the derelict Gainsborough Studios building in London, among mounting opposition to McQueen's use of fur. The day before, anti-fur protesters broke into the venue and vandalised the set, and a small group of protesters harassed guests on the day of, although the show proceeded regardless. Runway theatrics were kept to a minimum, with no special effects or grand finale; the only set dressing was covering the runway with shards of slate. Sixty-three looks were presented, including several showpieces. Accessories were inspired by African traditions, including neck rings, nose bars, and one mouthpiece that forced the lips wide open.
Contemporary response to the collection was mixed. McQueen had long been subject to accusations that his designs were misogynist, and the aggressive styling in Eshu reignited these criticisms. Later academic analysis reconsidered these accusations and commented on the African inspiration and natural materials. Items from the collection have appeared in exhibitions like the retrospective Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.
Background British fashion designer Alexander McQueen was known for his imaginative, sometimes controversial designs, and dramatic fashion shows. Over the course of his career, which lasted from 1992 until his death in 2010, he explored a broad range of ideas and themes, particularly sexuality, death, violence, romanticism, and historicism. McQueen began his career as an apprentice on Savile Row in the late 1980s, earning a reputation as an expert tailor. From October 1996 to October 2001, McQueen wasin addition to his responsibilities for his own labelhead designer at French fashion house Givenchy.
McQueen's personal fixations had a strong influence on his designs. From the earliest years of his career, he experimented with unconventional materials and visual techniques. He was fascinated with nature and often used related motifs and materials, including real animal parts, in his designs. He was also inspired by the work of his favourite photographers, and several collections had garments with photograph prints. He read widely to draw inspiration from world cultures, infusing his collections with concepts borrowed from traditional ethnic dress and jewellery. McQueen's Autumn/Winter 1997 collection It's a Jungle Out There had been African-inspired, featuring neck rings and animal parts. Neck rings reappeared in The Overlook (Autumn/Winter 1999) in the form of a corset that covered the whole torso. By that point, these hard moulded bodices had become a McQueen signature.
The violent, sexualised styling McQueen deployed in his early career often resulted in the press accusing him of misogyny. McQueen consistently objected to this characterisation. In an April 1995 interview following Highland Rape (Autumn/Winter 1995), he had said that he designed with his lesbian friends in mind, and was not attempting to appeal to most straight women. Responding to press accusations that the designs in The Hunger (Spring/Summer 1996) were misogynist, McQueen similarly rebutted that most of the female models who walked in the show were lesbians.
Concept and collection
Eshu (Spring/Summer 2000) is the sixteenth collection McQueen designed for his eponymous fashion house. McQueen was interested in the styles and rituals associated with traditional African dress, and how these traditions were influenced and changed by colonialism. Drawing on the twentieth century dress of the Yoruba people of West Africa, the collection presents an aesthetic of primitivism using couture techniques and luxury materials. By this period, Yoruba women had incorporated into their day-to-day fashion many elements introduced by European missionaries in the nineteenth century. Silhouettes were inspired by Victorian fashion, such as cinched waists, voluminous skirts, and balloon sleeves, but used traditional African materials and aesthetics. The collection is named for Eshu, a trickster god in the Yoruba religion variously identified with travellers, luck, and death. Eshu was said to delight in creating strife and division, sometimes as a test for humans.
As was common for McQueen, Eshu featured motifs and materials that reflected the beauty and power of nature. Faux roses in fabric and leather appeared on several looks. Others incorporated animal materials including leather, shearling, springbok skin and hair, and rabbit fur. Some items featured wooden beads, a natural material that also referenced traditional African jewellery. The hems of many items were cut roughly and distressed with red clay, reminiscent of the experimental techniques McQueen had employed in his early days. Several garments from his first professional fashion show, Nihilism (Spring/Summer 1994), had been similarly distressed with paint, rust, or mud.
McQueen sought to "push the silhouette" of Western fashion by giving many designs unusually voluminous shapes. To this end, there were exaggerated shoulders, chunky white knits, and dresses with full Victorian skirts. He also included more conventional items such as distressed crop tops and his signature tailored frock coats. Other tailored items included skirt suits with square shoulders, cropped sleeves, and zipped fronts. McQueen's low-rise bumster trousers appeared in denim. For evening-wear, there were black dresses, one embellished with crystals.
Accessories for the collection were aggressive and inspired by traditional African styles. The show's opening look featured a wooden mask by McQueen's preferred milliner, Philip Treacy. As usual, McQueen relied on Shaun Leane for jewellery, which included coiled neck rings, oversized hoop earrings, and nose bars. One model was fitted with a silver mouthpiece that forced her lips wide open into a snarling expression, a look which Dana Thomas thought may have been "inspired by a Yoruba totem".
Runway show
Preceding circumstances McQueen's previous show, Eye (Spring/Summer 2000), had been shown in New York rather than his home city of London. At the time, he stated that the move to New York was a business decision intended to showcase his brand beyond London Fashion Week, and was clear from the outset that he intended to return to England the following season. As expected, Eshu marked McQueen's return to London.
McQueen had long used real fur and animal parts in his collections, including farmed fur for his work at Givenchy. Two seasons before Eshu, he had been criticised for featuring these materials in his own-label collection The Overlook. He argued that the rabbit fur and sheepskins his own label used were by-products of the food industry. In any case, Eshu attracted attention from anti-fur activists, some of whom broke into the venue the day before the show and vandalised the set with slogans. It was rumoured that they had placed a bomb or otherwise booby-trapped the stage.
On the day of the show, a small group of anti-fur protesters harassed the waiting journalists and celebrities, blocked by a crowd of police officers. Security was unusually tight because of the bomb threat rumours, and individual bag searches caused long lines. Celebrities in attendance included actors Helen Mirren, Ralph Fiennes, and Francesca Annis, singers Bjork and Sharleen Spiteri, and model Jade Jagger. Tracey Emin covered the collection for the revived Nova magazine.
Catwalk presentation The runway show was staged on 15 February 2000 at the derelict Gainsborough Studios building in London. Alfred Hitchcock, McQueen's favorite director, had shot several of his early films there. The invitation featured a close-up detail of red-streaked hair. The presentation was managed by McQueen's usual collaborators, including Gainsbury & Whiting for production and Joseph Bennett for set design. Runway theatrics were kept to a minimum, with no special effects or grand finale. Producer Sam Gainsbury felt that McQueen's intent was to match the presentation to the clothes: "he had found this big empty location that was very raw; the collection was very raw".
The minimal stage dressing consisted of covering the runway with shards of slate. The soundtrack consisted of African drums and techno beats; models also had microphones on their feet so their footsteps could be heard over the sound system as well. They were styled with simple make-up, their hair slicked down and powdered with gold, referencing the wealth generated by gold mining in West Africa.
Sixty-three looks were presented in the runway show. Models entered on a pathway, built by the production team, which led from the top of the building to the runway on the ground floor. The collection included several showpiece looks. The first model wore a full-skirted Victorian-style ivory dress daubed with red mud, paired with an African-styled mask of wood trimmed with horsehair, possibly depicting Eshu. Diana Gärtner wore Look 7, a beige leather one-shouldered ball gown, hand-cut with feather patterns. The hem was roughly and asymmetrically cut away to show the wire-frame crinoline beneath. Karolina Malinowska wore Look 8, a full-length dress in white gauze with a bodice draped in wooden beads and a hem dipped in red mud. Looks 11 and 12 featured leather tops printed on the back with a 1932 Wanda Wulz photograph that superimposes the artist's portrait with her cat. The garments were slashed into narrow strips that were left to hang loosely. McQueen's by-then signature moulded torso appeared in Look 21, paired with a drop-waist skirt covered in handmade fabric roses. Alek Wek wore Look 37, a sleeveless fitted dress whose bodice and upper skirt were beaded in yellow-green, transitioning to a brown skirt of loose natural horsehair. For Look 56, the model was fitted with the snarling mouthpiece and large hoop earrings. Look 58 comprised an oversized black coat made from large coils of hair.
Reception
Eshu drew a varied reception from contemporary critics, and retrospectives differ in their assessment of the critical consensus. Author Andrew Wilson called the collection divisive, noting that several female critics, including Joanna Pitman, Joan Smith, and Brenda Polan, had "believed the show to be symbolic of a deep-seated misogyny". In contrast, Katherine Gleason wrote that reception from fashion journalists was mostly positive, although she agreed that the popular press had accused McQueen of misogyny.
One polarised review came from Ginia Bellafante of The New York Times. She wrote that watching the show "felt like eavesdropping on a young man's therapy session, as he tried to work out very complicated feelings about his mother", and further criticised the high heels, heavy clothing, and mouthpiece as cruelty to the models. On the other hand, she found "much that was exceptional" about it, including several wearable pieces, and the hard torso from Look 21, which she thought "achieved the status of art".