Pantheon ad Lucem
For the show's finale, model Tiiu Kuik wore a grey evening gown with an exaggerated hourglass silhouette, styled with a shoulder-piece decorated with silver orchids, and walked to the spotlit centre of the stage to the sound of a flatlining heart monitor.
Critical response to the clothing and the runway show for Pantheon ad Lucem was mixed to positive, and it is regarded as one of McQueen's less significant collections.
[8][9][10] In 2000, McQueen sold 51 per cent of his company to the Gucci Group, owned by French conglomerate PPR (now Kering), but retained creative control.
[22] The collection took inspiration from the loosely draped style of ancient Greek garments as well as the costume and design of science fiction films like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Star Wars (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and Signs (2002).
[1][15][23] The palette was mostly neutral and the cuts were relatively simple, making heavy use of silhouettes McQueen had relied on in the past, including dresses with cinched waists, tailored suits and coats, and draped gowns.
[28] The final items in the collection had highly structured boat necklines in an exaggerated width, coupled with reflective fabric or inset LED lights, giving the wearer an inhuman or alien quality.
Garments with heavily decorated yokes or long sleeves, such as those found in Looks 33 and 46 respectively, pointed back at the Plantagenet period of the Late Middle Ages.
[14][28] The exaggerated floral prints, an unusual motif for McQueen and one which he called "pivotal" to the collection's presentation, were derived from photographs of orchids by Peter Arnold.
[33] PPR president Francois-Henri Pinault and chairman Serge Weinberg, as well as departing Gucci CEO Domenico De Sole were in attendance.
The themes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Doctor Who appeared, as did a sample from the initial fanfare of the Richard Strauss composition Also sprach Zarathustra, used in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
[14][20] McQueen's longtime collaborator Shaun Leane created accessories for the collection, most notably the silver "Orchid" shoulder-piece that featured in the final look.
[28] The final three looks, all highly sculptural dresses, were presented in near-darkness, lit mainly by reflective fabric and LEDs inside the garments and jewellery.
The gown had an exaggerated hourglass silhouette: a flared A-line skirt, tightly cinched waist, and a V-shaped structured bodice that opened into a wide boat neckline.
[17][38] Kuik walked onto the darkened stage as concentric rings of light flashed on the floor and the sound of a heart monitor began playing.
[22][44][45] For The New York Times, Cathy Horyn wrote that only McQueen and Miuccia Prada had made a "leap of faith" that season and created designs that looked ahead, rather than following contemporary trends.
[45] For The Independent, Susannah Frankel felt McQueen "rose to the challenge beautifully", calling the final dresses a "futuristic fashion moment".
[43] Sarah Mower of Vogue and Jess Cartner-Morley at The Guardian both felt the pared-down designs were a smart move, positioning McQueen as uniquely forward-looking compared to his peers.
[14][48] In contrast, Booth Moore for the Los Angeles Times felt that designers in general were moving towards producing "salable clothes" rather than "runway antics".
[19][33] Cartner-Morley wrote one of the few strongly positive reviews, saying the "bare-bones production revealed how well McQueen's clothes, with their impeccable shape and finish, stand up to scrutiny".
[18][23] Frankel highlighted the clingy jersey and leather garments as the collection's best, and noted the use of "complex seams" to allow tweed items to be similarly figure-hugging.
[14] Vanessa Friedman of the Financial Times connected the collection's self-referential styling to McQueen turning down the head designer position at YSL.
[24] Moore thought McQueen was trying to show his financial backers at Gucci Group that he was a serious designer in his own right, and could produce commercially viable clothing.
Three models waddled out in incandescent dresses with wide, angular tops and bottoms and tiny waists, which made them look like Scandinavian-designed salt and pepper shakers.
[43] Robin Givhan from The Washington Post found the collection lacked variety, and wrote that "McQueen seemed to retreat to the safety of overzealous tailoring and goofball flourishes" rather than challenging himself.
Judith Watt, in her biography of McQueen, reports the collection as a disappointment to the audience, who had come to expect the designer to present them with "bread and circuses".
[25] However, she felt that the collection embodied "artful simplicity", writing that the draped bias-cut dresses demonstrated McQueen's understanding of how fabric worked with the body.
[35] Andrew Wilson barely remarks on the clothing in Blood Beneath the Skin, and journalist Dana Thomas omits the show entirely from Gods and Kings.
[52] Fashion journalist Alex Fury argued that Pantheon was an example of McQueen expressing his vision "through the bodies of his models" rather than through elaborate set dressing.
[6] Kristin Knox suggested that the exaggerated necklines from Looks 52 through 54 were visual precursors of the highly structured silhouettes he presented in The Girl Who Lived in the Tree (Autumn/Winter 2008) and The Horn of Plenty (Autumn/Winter 2009).
[55][56] No clothing from Pantheon appeared in the 2011 retrospective Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, but two pieces of jewellery by Shaun Leane were selected for the exhibit's "Cabinet of Curiosities" section: the "Orchid" shoulder-piece worn in the final look, and a pair of disc earrings in copper.
