Oyster dress

McQueen's design is a one-shouldered dress in bias-cut beige silk chiffon with a boned upper body and a full-length skirt consisting of hundreds of individual circles of organza sewn in dense layers to the base fabric, resembling the outside of an oyster shell.

Only two copies are known to exist, one held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York City and one by media personality Kim Kardashian.

[1][2] Although he worked in ready-to-wear – clothing produced for retail sale – his showpiece designs featured a degree of craftsmanship that verged on haute couture.

He presented three sequential phases of ensembles: shipwrecked pirates, black-clad conquistadors, and colourful dresses inspired by tropical birds.

[28][29] Galliano's shellfish dress was named for its layers of "pearl grey" organza ruffles that resembled stacked clamshells, a technically complex design that was actually executed by costumier Karen Crichton.

[31] According to his friend Sebastian Pons, McQueen owned numerous "copies and photographs" of Galliano's dress and would study them intently, trying to work out how it was constructed.

[32][33] Hundreds of individual circles of organza were sewn to the base fabric in dense layers, resembling an oyster shell or a mille-feuille pastry.

[40] The oyster dress is considered an iconic McQueen design; according to Pons and journalist Dana Thomas, it surpassed the famed Galliano original.

[35][41] In a contemporary review, Jess Cartner-Morley wrote that the dress exemplified the show's maritime theme, with chiffon layers that were "as soft and close as ripples on sand".

[44] Fashion curator Andrew Bolton labelled it "arguably the most important dress of the 21st century",[45] and evidence that McQueen had expanded his skillset from his early focus on tailored designs and had mastered draping.

[46] Author Ana Finel Honigman found that the lightness of the frills contrasted with the deconstructed appearance to create a "tension between gravity and transcendence".

Actress Liv Tyler wore a variation of the oyster gown to the Paris premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in December 2002.

[54] The Met's copy of the oyster dress appeared with other clothing from Irere in both stagings of the retrospective exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.

[a][56] Media personality Kim Kardashian owns the other known oyster dress, purchased from Los Angeles vintage boutique Lily et Cie.[45] Its original owner was socialite Angie Barrett, who wore it to the Cannes Film Festival and Beaux-Arts Ball in 2003.