Details
Staged in Paris in 2001 under the title 'El Baile del Toro Retorcido' (The Dance of the Twisted Bull), Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2002 collection was a haunting spectacle of control, rupture, and spectacle-as-ritual. Drawing on the codes of Spanish bullfighting, flamenco, and religious pageantry, the show wove together matador silhouettes, blood-red tulle, and corsetry that felt more surgical than sensual. Beauty and brutality were inseparable.
Models moved like dancers and offerings—waists cinched, arms framed, torsos punctured. Ruffled gowns bloomed outward, while McQueen’s signature tailoring met asymmetrical collapse. Spear-like adornments pierced through flamenco dresses, crafted in collaboration with longtime partner Shaun Leane, turning the body into battlefield and sculpture alike.
At the center of this choreography was Naomi Filmer’s Ball in the Small of My Back—a hand-blown glass sphere mounted in silver-plated copper, worn not as jewelry but as an architectural extension of the spine. It interrupted the model’s posture, bending movement into performance. Installed into the show like a prosthetic relic, the piece crystallized McQueen’s ongoing exploration of beauty as something simultaneously mythic and biomechanical.
Technical Specifications
October 2001, Paris
66 Looks
Network
Alexander McQueen, Naomi Filmer, Shaun Leane
Courtesy
Vogue
