'Highland Rape' was an incredibly controversial collection by designer Alexander McQueen, was shown at london fashion week in 1995 as an A/W Ready to Wear collection. It was McQueens 4th ever show and propelled him to fame due to intense media coverage and scrutiny, retrospectively it is regarded as one of McQueen's most memorable collections.
The political issue McQueen was addressing with this collection was the historical-political conflict between England and Scotland in the 18th century, particularly the destruction of Scottish culture at the hands of the English. A key inspiration was the The Jacobite movement, which was a rebellion of scottish highlanders that grew in momentum as a response to the unionisation of england and scotland in 1701 and subsequent
subjection of the scottish people at the hands of the English occupation (Rashba, 2021). The goal of the Jacobite movement was to return Scotland to an independant and unoccupied country.
In 1746 the Jacobite movement was squashed when the Scottish forces were defeated in the battle of Culloden. The Duke of Cumberland, who led the English forces, created a law that made it illegal to wear highland-scot pieces of clothing including kilts and tartans. Tartans were the way clans identified themselves and outlawing them stripped Scottish people of their cultural identity. Highland people were also exiled from their ancestral homes in the Highland Clearances - after which Highland culture never recovered (Rashba, 2021).
Exploring the Collection
'Highland Rape' used overt references to what Mcqueen called the ‘assault on scotland’.
When exploring the collection the influences are obvious. A green leather breastplate style top debossed with the thistle, which is the national flower of Scotland. The Scotland thistle is also green and purple, which the colour palette references in the garments and set design.
The metaphorical assault is portrayed with depictions of a literal assault - designs that are torn over the endogenous zones of the models, over the crotch, and the breasts. The entire collection has a sexual tone, as models were encouraged to walk down the runway licking their lips and touching themselves sensually - while others staggered as if they had been sexually assaulted, with fake cuts and bruises painted on them.
Bottoms were covered in bleach stains as if the wearer was ‘so frightened they peed their pants’. Many of the skirts were very tight, restricting the model's movement as they walked. On a few designs Mcqueen featured a silver chain extending from the crotch representing a tampon string, another wore underpants covered in cigarette buds and a top filled with burn holes, presenting her as a victim of cigarette burns. One of Mcqueen most famous designs at the time, the bumbster, which was a super low rise style played Into the themes of sexualised clothing and near nudity.
The collection heavily featured the McQueen clan Tartan in many designs, In some designs the Tartan was damaged and torn, representing the stripping of the Highland Tartans by the British (Vrencoska, 2009). The finale of the show was intended to represent England, the outfit was a feather headpiece and black crop top. McQueen had the model walk confidently down the catwalk while another Model representing scotland cowered at the back of the stage
Intention and Impact
Most of the designs are neither practical or wearable, but at this point in time McQueen was not selling and manufacturing clothing for the public, and the collection acted as an image building exercise for his artistic identity and brand.
Despite this, His belief in the political conflict was one that he truly held in his own life, he said to he press when discussing the collection:
"Scotland for me is a harsh, cold and bitter place. It was even worse when my great great grandfather used to live there. I have no respect for what the English did there, they wiped whole families out. The reason I'm patriotic about Scotland is because I think it's been dealt a really hard hand. It's been marketed the whole world over as, you know, fucking Haggis, fucking Bagpipes. but no one ever puts anything into it. I hate when people romanticise Scotland. There is nothing Romantic about its history"
Alexander McQueen
The collection drew intense criticism, with claims that Mcqueen was glorifying sexual assault to sell his brand image, and demeaning women with his clothing. Conservative journalists were disgusted by the nudity and sexual themes, while progressive journalists were more focused on the social implications of McQueen's work, posing questions about whether is was right to depict women in what they believed to be a degrading way just to prove a political point, and raising the issue of whether a collection like this is misogynistic by depicting sexual violence against women as a spectacle for shock value.
McQueen in almost all retrospective interviews addressed criticism as unintelligent; and said people couldn't separate the ‘rape of women’ from his intended depiction of the ‘rape of Scotland’. McQueen always defended his collection and was angered by accusations that it was misogynistic saying to the press:
"[The critics] should have been grateful to me. At least I gave them something to write about. They completely misunderstood Highland Rape. It wasn’t anti-women. It was actually anti the fake history of Vivienne Westwood. She makes tartan lovely and romantic and tries to pretend that’s how it was. Well, 18th Century Scotland was not about beautiful women drifting across the moors in swathes of unmanageable chiffon. My show was anti that sort of romanticism. "
Alexander McQueen 'The Sunday Times', 1997
Some academics have defended Mcqueen retrospectively after the show. One of which is
Caroline Evans, professor emerita at Central Saint Martins who wrote the following in her 2003 book 'Fashion on the Edge":
"[t]he cruelty inherent in McQueen’s representations of women was part of the designer’s wider vision of the cruelty of the world, and although his view was undoubtedly bleak[,] it was not misogynist”
Caroline Evans, 'Fashion on The Edge' 2003
A model Jodie Kidd, who walked in the show when she was only 15, commentented on the hostility she and many of the other models who walked felt from McQueen at the time of the show.
"I honestly just thought he really didn't like women, he didn't like the models, he didn't like anything. He was just trying to torture us all. But his vision, when you actually came down and the silhouette and the way he made you look was so extraordinary, I don't think I really understood at the time"
Jodie Kidd, 'The New York Times' 2018
Author's Opinion on Highland Rape
My personal opinion on 'Highland Rape' is The collection itself is undoubtedly viscerally entrancing, McQueen's sheer talent for constructing both clothing and a cohesive and impactful design narrative is on full display here, an impressive feat for a designer so early into their career.
The quality of the clothing and spectacle of talent aside - I believe women that felt demeaned by the collection were not speaking out of turn, McQueens representation of women is can easily be viewed demeaning when it is removed from the context of the political issue, to the point where even the models who walked in the show felt the clothes were hostile towards them.
I disagree with using the depiction of violence against women for spectacle, and find it offensive that McQueen has immortalised these women in state of extreme victimhood.
I believe such depictions of presumably gendered sexual violence against women are a gateway to larger discussions about patriarchal power in the fashion industry. Could McQueen's representation of women's bodies ever be anything but harmful, can he ever achieve a subversive message using the image of sexual violence when he is in a complete and authoritative position of power over a woman's body, without concern for her comfort or feelings? McQueen showed complete disregard for the complaints of models in this instance, even going on to state:
We aren't talking about [the model's] feelings, we are talking about mine'.
Alexander McQueen, 'The New Yorker'
Even though McQueen’s collections display of women is imperfect to say the least, can it ever be challenged that it is his right as an artist to tell his story in which ever manner he chooses? If Highland Rape was made today, McQueen's career would undoubtedly be over, and so we would be robbed of one of the last auteurs in fashion whose contributions to culture and art cannot be understated.
I am reminded of McQueen's initial intention to display what was essentally a striping of identity - if we start to create boundaries around what art is acceptable based on what we find offensive we risk stripping away the power of art to be an expression of individual ideas - we lose the tools to identify ourselves and others with like the Highlanders did. I don't want to live in a world where no one is allowed to create anything daring out of fear of the metaphorical English occupation - a rising puritan dictatorship hellbent on sanitizing the humanity of every know corner of the world until we all enter into a single state of existence - a life with no seasoning.
Concluding thoughts on the collection:
To focus solely on the implications of objectification and misogyny is to misunderstand the nuance, purpose, and intention of McQueen’s work. Such an intense reaction from so many people illustrates the power and impact of this collection, which was obviously informed by McQueen’s personal identity and his own experience, as a raw expression of his connection to his heritage and trauma. Both McQueen and his sister who he was extremely close to, were victims of sexual violence and abuse.
This collection whether deemed offensive or not, is a powerful display of McQueen’s artistic storytelling that still invites discussion and analysis even almost 30 years after its release and is possibly one of the most notable discussions of the highland conflict in contemporary history, The goal of this collection was clearly eliciting a visceral emotional response, and for better or for worse, that's exactly what it did.
References:
Elenowitz-Hess, C. 2020, ‘Reckoning with Highland Rape: Sexuality, Violence, and Power on the Runway’, Fashion Theory, November, pp. 1-19, Retrieved 31 August 2022, DOI: 10.1080/1362704X.2020.1846325
Rashba, M. 2021, Fashioning Scotland: Alexander McQueen and the Politics of National Identity, Masters Thesis, Tufts University, Massachusetts
Rowe, K. 2015, Elevating the Other: A Theoretical Approach to Alexander McQueen, Masters Thesis, Brigham Young University, Utah
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011, McQueen and Tartan, Retrieved 2 September, from
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011, Savage Beauty, Retrieved 31 August 2022, from
Thurman J. 2011, Dressed to Thrill, Retrieved 2 September 2022, from:
Vrencoska, G. 2009, ‘POLITICAL STATEMENTS IN CONCEPTUAL FASHION: THE VOICE OF NATIONAL SENTIMENTS AS A SELF-REFERENCE IN THE READY-TO-WEAR COLLECTIONS OF ALEXANDER McQUEEN AND HUSSEIN CHALAYAN’, Annual Review, vol .2 , pp. 867-883
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