Jacket, It’s a Jungle Out There, autumn/winter 1997–98

Alexander McQueen (British, 1969–2010)
Jacket
It’s a Jungle Out There, autumn/winter 1997–98
Silk and cotton twill printed with an image from The Thief to the Left of Christ by Robert Campin, ca. 1430
Courtesy of Alexander McQueen
Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø / Art + Commerce

In McQueen’s Words

“When you see a woman wearing McQueen, there’s a certain hardness to the clothes that makes her look powerful. It kind of fends people off.”

The Guardian, September 19, 2005

Bodysuit, It’s a Jungle Out There, autumn/winter 1997–98

Alexander McQueen (British, 1969–2010)
Bodysuit
It’s a Jungle Out There, autumn/winter 1997–98
Brown leather with bleached denim and taxidermy crocodile heads
Courtesy of Alexander McQueen
Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø / Art + Commerce

In McQueen’s Words

“Animals . . . fascinate me because you can find a force, an energy, a fear that also exists in sex.”

L’Officiel, February 2010

Ensemble, It’s a Jungle Out There, autumn/winter 1997–98

Alexander McQueen (British, 1969–2010)
Ensemble
It’s a Jungle Out There, autumn/winter 1997–98
Jacket of brown pony skin with impala horns; trousers of bleached denim
Courtesy of Alexander McQueen
Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø / Art + Commerce

In McQueen’s Words

“The whole show feeling was about the Thomson’s gazelle. It’s a poor little critter—the markings are lovely, it’s got these dark eyes, the white and black with the tan markings on the side, the horns—but it is the food chain of Africa. As soon as it’s born it’s dead, I mean you’re lucky if it lasts a few months, and that’s how I see human life, in the same way. You know, we can all be discarded quite easily. . . . You’re there, you’re gone, it’s a jungle out there!”

McQueen quoted in Caroline Evans, Fashion at the Edge: Spectacle, Modernity and Deathliness (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002)