Confidantes, champions, and muses

This sequin dress––from a collection memorializing Isabella Blow, one of McQueen’s closest confidantes, champions, and muses—is paired here with a hat, previously owned by Blow, that was crafted by their mutual friend and frequent collaborator, Philip Treacy. Deceptively simple, McQueen’s dress design displays his gift for imbuing the technical with the personal: On the wearer’s left side, opaque and translucent gold-colored beads are precisely embedded between vertical rows of black sequins to produce a faithful portrait of Blow. Mimicking a lenticular print, this representation of her face is visible only at certain angles, an effect not unlike the experience of memory.