Scents of Scotland: Alexander McQueen, Child of the Unseelie Court

Columns

When I heard somewhere in 2010 that Alexander McQueen had committed suicide, I hardly noticed the news. It took me a trip to Edinburgh to understand who he was and what he did.





All of the magic on the British Isle truly comes from the North.

Joan Rowling did not come up with the world of Harry Potter - she simply described it, looking through the window at Elephant House, a cafe in Edinburgh on the George IV Bridge. Outside its window, just like after the first win over Lord Voldemort, magic creatures and wizards simply go about their business among muggles in an utterly nonchalant manner. They look decidedly non-muggle, including their overall appearance and choice of clothes; they can have pink hair, be one-eyed or one-legged, with a face full of piercings; they can be wearing a black tall hat, a frock coat, holding a walking stick, or they can have a half-foot high beehive on their heads covered in natural roses.



Beltane Fire Festival 2010 - Edinburgh - May Queen by Martin Robertson

They can be in tartans, hoop skirts and walk barefoot; have ultra long hair and beards yet wear maxi skirts - and be male. For instance, two guys were walking through the Grassmarket square wearing white one-shoulder chitons — we were observing them from the Black Bull pub. It was barely 10°C outside... All of the oddities were not performing, they were not touting anything - they simply live there, going about their business. When your eyes meet, they might look at you for a mere second, and then move along.

Muggles don't pay any attention to them: they may not see them or they are simply used to them by now. After the trendy, hipster London, this relaxed manner seems very strange but it also gives tremendous, one-of-a-kind relief.



Samhuinn Parade by Patrick Down

At the lobby of our hotel, there was a small eclectic library where I found a coffee table book about McQueen. When I opened it and saw the white horned ghost from the "Sarabande" collection, I thought to myself: "Yup, people may certainly wear that kind of stuff here".



Alexander McQueen above and 2 pics below by Maia Valenzuela





One year later, I was lucky enough to attend the "Savage Beauty" exhibit at Victoria & Albert's Museum and ever since then I believe that there are no modern designers today that could rival Alexander McQueen.

…You ride the train from Oxford to London on a rainy day, exiting at Notting Hill; you stand in line among others who, just like yourself, had bought their tickets three months in advance (barely managing to get their hands on the 14:30 time slot), then you enter the dark avant hall and you see a dead person staring at you from the wall. There is no doubt that he is looking at you from the Other Side, especially since the face almost instantly starts to morph into a mask of an Unseelie fairy and the human gaze goes out in the hollows of the metal skull before it lights up again.







Alexander McQueen by Maia Valenzuela



Alexander McQueen was born into a working class family from London's East End; he never lived in Scotland and was neither an admitted mystic nor a folklorist. It were simply fairies (from the Unseelie Court, of course) who had swapped him at birth, and it was also them who took him back forty years later.

It is likely that the Queen just missed her minstrel.





Alexander McQueen by Maia Valenzuela

In Scottish folklore, the fairies are traditionally divided into the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. Genetically they stem from the Light and Dark Elves of the Germanic-Scandinavian mythology (Ljósálfar and Dökkálfar, respectively), while etymologically the words come from Middle- and North English words "seely' ("happy, blessed") and unseely ("unhappy, ominous").

The fairies of the Seelie Court (aka Summer Court, Light Court) are generally kind to people, they help them or accept their help, they do good in return for good deeds and even if they prank us, they do it kind-heartedly and more out of mischief than out of wickedness. The destruction or damage possibly done to fragile humans by their tricks is typically beyond their understanding anyway. The fairies of the Seelie Court and their aesthetics are all flowers, angels and happiness (which may quite well turn out to be an illusion).

Alexander McQueen above & below by Maia Valenzuela

The Unseelie Court (aka Winter Court, Dark Court) comprises evil, hostile creatures that humans should better stay away from, especially at night or in the wild. A vast part of folk protection magic is devoted to ways of preventing chance encounters with the Unseelie. Just as the Seelie are not always kind and magnanimous, the Unseelie are capable of attachment to a mortal; they may treat a person nicely, like a favorite pet. Their aesthetics are Gothic, the beauty of decay, the sweetness of cruelty. It is exactly which Alexander McQueen became an unsurpassed master at.



Alexander McQueen by Maia Valenzuela

Scotland meant a lot to him. Alexander studied the history of his family, the roots of which go to the Isle of Skye, quite thoroughly, and he used the clan's tartan in many of his collections.



Alexander McQueen above & below by Maia Valenzuela





However, according to McQueen himself, Scotland is not "fucking haggis, fucking tartan and fucking bagpipes." What McQueen did was the aesthetic quintessence of Scotland with its nighttime, silver, blood and sharp edges; Scotland that would not become what it is for world culture today, a land of daydreams and legends, if not for the eternal rebellion of the Scots against the English, the fairies against the humans, and individuality against mainstream discourse; for the sake of True King, the Dark Isle.

The cornerstone of that Scottish spirit is the semantic trio of "the world of fairies - the afterworld - the counterculture," and it was perfectly suited for McQueen's cultural message as a designer. In each one of his collections, the concentrated aesthetics of the visuals rapidly flee the boundaries of the socially accepted and approved beauty, continuing to move forward at an ever increasing velocity.



Alexander McQueen by Maia Valenzuela



McQueen has always been a fantastic tailor; he interned at Anderson & Sheppard on Savile Row (and later at Gieves & Hawkes, followed by a stint at Berman's & Nathan's theater costume company), and then moved to work for Romeo Gigli in Milan, and Koji Tatsuno in London, all of them adding to his craftsmanship.

An ideal jacket and skirt are the best base that can serve as canvas for further fairy revelations. Without that steady craftsmanship he could quite possibly be considered just another fashion freak. Even in his punk years, all the dresses, jackets, trousers (made by McQueen from whatever materials Alexander could find and with no atelier to his name to construct them) fit the figure like a glove, and if they did break any proportions, then it exquisitely served the initial artistic aim.



Dante (Fall/Winter 1996) was the designer's first collection to have received any sizable budget (30.000 pounds), and it started McQueen's path as a designer mystic, a magical theater director.



Nobody could combine several historical periods, the human and the non-human, in one runway show, or even in just one model (the effect is reached by very meticulous construction of the aesthetic image, followed by a targeted and masterful DE-construction thereof), with ethnics, and usually more than one, which creates something completely wholesome and unique.

Nobody before him and nobody after him could make their runway shows to be not just an expo of money and technology, but a concept show, filled to the brim with historical and cultural connotations that are a separate rare pleasure to read and decipher.

This theatrical, multi semantic and decadent signature style found reflection in the brand's fragrances as well. While Lee was alive, the house of McQueen launched just two fragrances — Kingdom in 2003 and My Queen in 2005. Neither were commercially successful in the U.S., both received poor reviews form the critics and were discontinued quite quickly.

After McQueen's suicide, the Gucci Group decided that the house would continue without its founder, whose place as creative director was taken by Alexander's personal assistant and Head of Women's wear Sarah Burton.

Her creations are undoubtedly talented and would make any French fashion brand proud. The wedding dress that Sarah created in 2011 for Catherine Middleton, the then fiancee and now wife of Prince William, is truly delightful: It is exactly the way a future Queen of England, aka the modern embodiment of Cinderella, should be dressed; noble, old-fashioned and impeccable.

The social discourse is built on subtle, barely recognized myths where fairytales play an important role. The fiancee of the heir to the throne should definitely be British (especially since marriage between blood relatives is a thing of the past) and she must look like a princess: a trail, a corset, lace, a practically historical dress style, and all of it should definitely come from a British designer.

Overall, Sarah Burton is a truly gifted designer, but she has none of Alexander McQueen's furious, otherworldly fantasy or his razor-sharp artistic talent. The house is still playing avant garde, developing some of the late designer's ideas, but they do it in a quiet, commercial and bourgeois way. "Beauty intertwined with darkness, that's what (the house of) McQueen is," says Sarah proudly, as she tries to follow that motto as much as she can while making that darkness cute and sellable.

This is also true of the fragrances that were launched by the house after 2010. Nicola Moulton, Beauty and Health Editor at British Vogue, speaking of the brand's fragrances that had been launched while the designer was alive, said that "its perfumes have failed to emulate the impact of its clothes", which "has been a source of deep frustration."

Sarah Burton, on the other hand, "has brought a softness to the label while retaining its strength and subversion," creating a fragrance that "in a market saturated by newness (..) has the beguiling sense of a perfume that has always existed."

McQueen is based on the "regal and forbidden" trio of sumptuous white flowers: Jasmine, tuberose and ylang-ylang. That pretty much stops any further discussion of its novelty and rebellion. All those talks about quality or the ingredients being very expensive most often mask utter absence of creative thought. End of story.

"I have always been interested in the topiс of hidden seduction and attraction, those secret Victorian depths," says Sarah Burton about her then new arrival. The thing is though that Alexander McQueen's lyric heroine has never ever seduced anyone, and certainly not with white flowers. McQueen's fragrances are about a strong woman, a dangerous woman, a wild woman who, like Persephone and Inanna, has been through the ordeal of the Underworld, yet made it back.

Fascinating, yes, but never seductive. Sexy, alright, but never one to offer or promise any sex.

This is the paradox of McQueen who on multiple occasions was accused by the British press of misogyny or hatred towards women. This came after the dresses from Highland rape that were torn in strategic places; after the mouth-stretching fangs from Eshu; after the metal armor-dress from his Horn of Plenty or the armadillo shoes from Plato's Atlantis that forced the models to reinvent the mechanics of the human gait.



All of that was probably read like the punk and openly gay designer's dream of violence towards women (and the establishment as well), his dream of revenge; apparently, in order to love women one must dress them like wealthy bourgeois or seductive courtesans, which is successfully done by everybody, from Dior to Mugler. McQueen, who was sexually assaulted by his own sister's husband and witnessed the scumbag beat and strangle her on multiple occasions, did not hate women.



Alexander McQueen by Maia Valenzuela

He made them stronger, turned them into survivors, deep and magical; into women who exist beyond the limits of the rough and banal conventional reality. "I want people to be afraid of women that I dress," he used to say. His heroine is never the victim, but always the phoenix that rises from the ashes, turning into someone grander than before.



Alexander McQueen by Maia Valenzuela



In order to define McQueen's oeuvre, one can come up with many key words and expressions: Gothic, theater, historical dress styles, punk, bird-women, Victoriana, Scotland, death, wild nature, rebellion, romanticism, Japan, afterlife, animals, armor, but the House's style is in fact in the unique synthesis of those elements that can only be described as "beauty', "frenzy", "uniqueness" and "genius."

McQueen's first perfumery experiment, Kingdom was launched in 2003. It was the creation of Jacques Cavallier.

Before we inhale the scent, let's take a look at its exterior. The bottle of Kingdom was once called both the clumsiest and the most genius flacon in the history of perfumery. I don't know where McQueen got the idea for it, but the image of a silver apple with blood-tinged pulp inside is a symbol of eternal life in the very realms that are divided by the fairies and the dead, and it is one of the key images in visionary Celtic studies. And I do mean visionary, not historiographical Celtic studies here. Did McQueen read about it (perhaps, in the works of Yeats or Fiona Macleod?) or did he just accidentally got a hold of it somewhere in the noosphere? That remains a mystery.

Other readable images are the seashell throne with a soft pillow interior where one can sit only with one's legs spread wide apart or pulled under; an upside down heart that hints either at sexual submission or readiness for martyrdom (Scotland's patron saint, Andrew the Apostle, was crucified head down on a slanted cross; both of those things are the reverse side оf power.

The spray nozzle is placed very low, "under the seat," and the bottle can basically stand only on the recessed button (it simply falls onto its sloping back in any other position), which only underscores its erotic subtext even more. Is the buyer ready for a visit to such a kingdom? Press “Yes” or quit now.



Mark Mattock for Vogue, Alexander McQueen Kingdom



The potion inside the flacon is paradoxical.The official sources list the scent as a spicy oriental, but on the skin the first 'shot' is almost fougere-like, and it evolves into a spicy aromatic fragrance. I suspect that Kingdom is one of the most versatile fragrances to have launched in the last twenty years, because the few critics' descriptions of it seem too different.

The main reason for its commercial fiasco mentioned in the media was the overdose of cumin (or zira, a culinary spice) that allegedly made the perfume to be reminiscent of BO.

Cumin is certainly there, and lots of it, but not too much. It is exactly the cumin that, combined with mint, gives the fragrance its cool fougere opening. If you listen carefully, you can hear that an overture to it is played by citruses (primarily tangerine), neroli and bergamot, almost unrecognizable due to the cold-yet-spicy cover which lingers nearly to the end..

Closer to the middle, a duo of rhubarb and another risky spice, celery seed, comes to the forefront, accompanied by ginger and a sweet, slightly jam like rose in the background, both of which do not lead, but highlight the soloists rather nicely. Closer to the finish, the fragrance remains salty, spicy and somewhat sweet, although in a muted way, and finally it nestles into its neutral amber-musk base.

Despite the fact that about two thirds of the ingredients listed are edible, no one would dare call it a gourmand fragrance, for it is not about that at all. Is it about sex? It could be, considering the combination of salty and sweet notes that may evoke thoughts of sweat, but it could just as well be about dance. It has animality and wildness, but it lacks flirtation and seduction, which is possibly its key charm.

It is a daring composition, perfectly tailored, like everything from McQueen, and with a very unusual flight of fancy. I perfectly understand why Kingdom was a flop commercially - it is neither a fragrance for the masses, nor even a luxury fragrance; it is not simple, it is not easy-to-understand and it is not a status scent. The fragrance is interesting, but it defies any framework, even though Kingdom is not at all scandalous. It is calm and totally wearable. It's simply that one does not wear something like that in the world of humans. Again, one is reminded of Edinburgh with its fairies and freaks who go about their magic business in the eternal night.

I would say that Kingdom belongs in the niche segment where it is currently living out its final life chapter as a discontinued rarity, much lamented and greedily purchased when possible by those who find McQueen's savage beauty to be more than just fleeting fashion.

Timewise, Kingdom coincided with the Irere and Scanners collections, but I find it to be closer in spirit to Girl Who Lived in the Tree (Fall/Winter collection 2008), in the red colored capsule allowing McQueen to toy with fairy court fashions like never before. Empire and Biedermeier motifs combined with New Look and Indian jewelry resulted in something unusual, but definitely something that exists, albeit not in human culture. The pinnacle of the collection was the Queen of Hearts' Dress - it was the dress for the finale of the collection (the so-called 'Bride').





Alexander McQueen above & below by Maia Valenzuela





In Savage Beauty (the exhibit), it was placed on a podium, surrounded by candlelight, while the other dresses were lined as courtiers ready to hail their Majesty. During the original fashion show, the model was wearing a horned crown, and the mannequin in the exhibit was also given a golden scaly mask that completely covered the face.

There, in the concentrated macabre of McQueen's many years of creativity, the thought of having the dead embalmed body of that Queen of Hearts standing in state in that Gothic entourage, seemed not only completely natural, but even enchanting in a way.

In 2005, the second fragrance of the House was launched: My Queen, by Anne Flipo and Dominique Ropion. Before testing it out. and simply based on the lilac amphora flacon reminiscent of either a magic lantern or an arched mirrored labyrinth, I had decided that it was likely an attempt to recreate the Seelie Court, and I could not be more wrong. McQueen, a child of the Unseelie Court, would hardly call a seelie fragrance "My Queen."

The second release of the brand was a direct opposite of the first, for it was a baroque floral, but it was no less strange than the first one. My Queen has certain similarities with the It’s only a game collection (2005) that came out at the same time, slightly anime and doll-like, but I personally find it closer to Sarabande, which was presented two years later, the main theme of which was Edwardian remnants and ghosts of former grandeur. It especially concerns a few dresses with wilted flowers falling on the podium.



A cold, rounded violet with a retro heliothrope and a bit of almond opens the composition, that, according to most, is reminiscent of Lutens' cemetery-like Iris Silver Mist. Iris is present here as well, but it appears closer to the finale and it is more of an undertone here.

Before that, the scent unfolds in utter melancholy with notes of ghostly, seemingly white flowers and a patchouli-vetiver 'soil.' The most interesting thing in it is the rather distinct yet hard to decipher theme of slightly boozy fruit that is still edible but on the brink of going bad. It is possibly aided by musk that appears quite early, interfering with the entire palette and muting the colors next, much like the color grey works for the "Summer" color type. The cedar vanilla ending that lets the violet go in peace also sounds like gentle decay.

The opening violet is more like candied flowers than fresh natural ones, but the twist here is not their culinary sweetness, but more the general artifice and deadness of the main idea. One involuntary recalls the common Victorian obsession with taxidermy and ornaments made out of beloved dead people's hair popular in the era. Both were eagerly used by McQueen in his collections. Moreover, lilac in an English lady's dress is the color of half mourning, i.e. the color that succeeded black two years after the death of a close relative.

It is not surprising then that the fragrance did not enjoy any mass popularity either. Much like Kingdom, it is for those who find limitations of the bourgeois discourse stifling, for those who enjoy weird harmony and deviant beauty. Despite the fact that both fragrances were targeted at the female audience, out of these two, Kingdom is more of a king for the queen from My Queen. Anyway, gender stereotypes at Fairy courts can only exist in the form of a curious human game.

That was the end of McQueen's experiments with perfumery. The next fragrance, the aforementioned McQueen, came out much later, and a few years after that it was followed by a capsule collection of eight fragrances, but that is a completely different story that has got nothing to do with Lee McQueen.

The last collection to come out while McQueen was alive, Plato's Atlantis, is not an acknowledgment of a creative crisis, as some critics would say, but a certain aesthetic frontier where the human body has exhausted itself and where earthly history and art are no longer fashionable at the Courts. After that, McQueen would require actual fairy models and authentic styles from their world. And the world was probably not ready for that.

MCQUEEN | Official Trailer:



