What a Merry-Go-Round
Like McQueen's previous show Voss (Spring/Summer 2001), Merry-Go-Round served as a critique of the fashion industry, which he sometimes described as toxic and suffocating.
It contained elements that several authors have taken as references to French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH and its management, with whom McQueen had a turbulent relationship.
[22] McQueen's career roughly paralleled that of fellow British designer John Galliano, who preceded him in the industry by about a decade.
[42][38][41] The influence of military chic was clear in khaki items, garments tailored to resemble uniforms, and a headpiece of antique-looking aeroplanes.
Large greatcoats and gold braid drew aesthetically on the French Revolution, while other items, particularly the bias cut sheath dresses, were influenced by the clothing worn by flappers of the 1920s.
[44][45] Textile curators Clarissa M. Esguerra and Michaela Hansen identified Look 44, a sequined dress with ruffles at the hips, as exemplary of this influence in the collection.
They argued that it was McQueen's reinterpretation of the robe de style, a 1920s silhouette characterised by a straight-cut top with a more voluminous skirt at the hips.
[1][47] A classically-trained jeweller, Leane had to teach himself taxidermy in order to craft these items; he later replicated the pheasant claw earrings for his jewellery line.
[22][33][49] The invitations used an image by Ferdinando Scianna: an elderly-looking clown wearing a red, white, and blue outfit, echoing the tricoloured flag of France.
[45][50] The audience were first led into gated standing-room-only area which journalist Maggie Alderson derisively described as "holding pens", where they were made to wait for half an hour before being allowed to take their seats, to the irritation of many.
[51] Notable audience members included model Kate Moss, actress Bianca Jagger, media executive Nicholas Coleridge, and Domenico de Sole, then-CEO of Gucci.
[39] McQueen typically worked with a consistent creative team for his shows, which he planned with Katy England, his assistant and primary stylist.
[58] The performance direction for the models was aggressive – Claire Wilcox wrote that they walked "like dominatrixes", while the Vogue reviewer called them "hard-as-nails".
[38][1] Models were styled with stark white face make-up as a base, reminiscent of Pierrot, a sad clown stock character from pantomime theatre.
[64] Following Look 62, a black knit dress with white skull on the front, the lights went down, then came back up, illuminating the carousel as well as the decor at the rear of the stage.
[35][66] Another wore a bias cut dress in silver which exposed the model's breast, reminiscent of the 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix.
[71][72] Reviewers were generally pleased with the showmanship: Hilary Alexander wrote that it was "as striking as it was sinister", while Booth Moore at the Los Angeles Times called it "Broadway-worthy".
[73][74][75] Alexander complained that McQueen's was the only show worth seeing that Fashion Week, and wrote that it demonstrated "the huge gulf between a good designer and a genius".
[73] Both Maggie Alderson and Alexia Economou felt McQueen had used the season's trends – such as military chic, one-shoulder dresses, and tailored suits – better than any of the other designers presenting that week.
[75] Writing for The Independent, Susannah Frankel praised the way McQueen played with contrasts of "masculine and feminine, ultra-romantic and brutally sharp".
The staff reviewer at Women's Wear Daily (WWD) enjoyed it, but felt that the theme and the designs were not as balanced as they had been in McQueen's past collections.
[42] Cathy Horyn, fashion critic for The New York Times, felt it was "less coherent" than Voss had been, and called the military items "harsh".
[83] The unnamed reviewer for the Ottawa Citizen wondered what the theatrics "have to do with clothes"[84] Alderson also felt the lighting was too dark and the seats too far from the stage.
[87] Fashion theorists Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas regard What a Merry-Go-Round as "unjustly overshadowed" by the preceding collection, Voss.
In her review for The Times, Armstrong wrote that she felt McQueen had intended his eveningwear as a direct challenge to Galliano, who was known for his romantic evening gowns.
[91] For Miller, the harsh make-up paired with the graceful dresses "mirror[ed] the way McQueen oscillated between beauty and horror" in designing for women.
In their contemporary reviews, Armstrong and Avril Groom remarked on the absence of fur in the collection, which McQueen had been regularly using for the past few years.
[91] Geczy and Karaminas, picking up the thread of Evans' analysis, identified the performance aspect of Merry-Go-Round as an example of McQueen's "critically incisive" creative practice.
[33][45] When McQueen and Leane participated in the Fashion in Motion series at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in 2001, they presented the pearl and pheasant necklace as one of their featured items.
[97] Look 44 appeared in the exhibition Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse, originally staged in 2022 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
