The illusion of Kate Moss is an art piece first shown at the conclusion of the Alexander McQueen runway show The Widows of Culloden (Autumn/Winter 2006). It consists of a short film of English model Kate Moss dancing slowly while wearing a long, billowing gown of white chiffon, projected life-size within a glass pyramid in the centre of the show's catwalk. Although sometimes referred to as a hologram, the illusion was made using a 19th‑century theatre technique called Pepper's ghost. McQueen conceived the illusion as a gesture of support for Moss; she was a close friend of his and was embroiled in a drug-related scandal at the time of the Widows show. It is regarded by many critics as the highlight of the Widows runway show, and it has been the subject of a great deal of academic analysis, particularly as a wedding dress and as a memento mori. The illusion appeared in both versions of Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, a retrospective exhibition of McQueen's designs.
Background
British designer Alexander McQueen was known in the fashion industry for dramatic, theatrical fashion shows featuring imaginative, sometimes controversial designs. He was a close friend of English model Kate Moss, who had walked in several of his previous shows, including Bellmer La Poupée (Spring/Summer 1997) and Voss (Spring/Summer 2001). Moss retired from runway modelling in 2004 to focus on advertising contracts and other ventures. In 2005, she became caught up in controversy after images of her allegedly using drugs were leaked to the media, and several companies cancelled lucrative contracts with her. McQueen actively supported Moss throughout the controversy. He argued that in his opinion, many journalists also regularly used drugs, making their criticism hypocritical. He wore a T-shirt with the words "We love you Kate!" when he appeared at the end of the runway show for Neptune (Spring/Summer 2006). As a further gesture of support, he developed the idea of projecting her into the closing act of upcoming show, The Widows of Culloden (Autumn/Winter 2006), seeking "to show that she was more ethereal, bigger than the situation she was in".
Illusion
The illusion played as the finale of the runway show for The Widows of Culloden on 3 March 2006 at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. The stage was formed by a square of rough wood with a large glass pyramid in its centre, leaving a catwalk around the outside for the models to walk. After the final model exited the runway, the lights were dimmed and the illusion was projected within the central pyramid. The illusion, sometimes inaccurately described as a hologram, used a 19th‑century theatre technique called Pepper's ghost to display a life-sized projection of Kate Moss wearing a billowing white chiffon dress. In the Pepper's ghost technique, a brightly lit figure out of sight of the audience is partially reflected on an angled pane of glass, which makes the semi-transparent figure appear to be on the stage. The illusion was executed as a collaboration between British film director Baillie Walsh, production designer Joseph Bennett, post-production company Glassworks, and production duo Gainsbury & Whiting. Glassworks planned the illusion by creating a computer-generated render of the entire show space, including the seating and the runway. This enabled them to visualise the illusion from multiple viewpoints to confirm that it would look correct no matter where it was viewed from. The performance for Widows was inspired in part by serpentine dance, a type of stage performance from the 1890s that utilised billowing fabric and dramatic lighting, created by dancer Loie Fuller. Filming the effect was difficult, went over budget and took two hours. Moss was suspended in a harness and wind machines were used to create the movement of her dress. The flowing material made it difficult for the production designers to conceal the edges of the illusion. Because the pyramid was visible to the audience from all angles, it was more challenging to execute than an illusion using only a single field of view. It was the first fashion show to employ this kind of effect; media theorist Jenna Ng speculated that it may have been the first such large-scale 3D projection of a performance.
Reception and legacy
The illusion of Kate Moss is regarded by many critics as the highlight of the Widows runway show. Writing for Vogue, Sarah Mower said that "only Alexander McQueen could provide the astonishing feat of techno-magic that ended his show." Robert McCaffrey, writing in The Fashion Studies Journal, called it "one of McQueen's most enduring and iconic finales". American fashion editor Robin Givhan wrote that "McQueen created a fantasy that made his audience believe in the wizardry of fashion and its ability to move the spirit." Jess Cartner-Morley of The Guardian called it a "suitably haunting finale". Lisa Armstrong at The Times was more critical, calling it "unspeakably cheesy". Kerry Youmans, a publicist for McQueen, recalled seeing audience members crying upon viewing it. Writing after McQueen's death in 2010, Lorraine Candy, editor-in-chief of Elle, said that "The hologram of Moss ... was all we talked about for months afterwards." In 2014, Jessica Andrews of Vanity Fair named it one of the most dramatic runway stunts in history. The Victoria and Albert Museum (the V&A) in London owns a variant of the Kate Moss dress created by McQueen's assistant Sarah Burton for the 2006 wedding of another McQueen employee. Moss wore the original again on the cover of the May 2011 issue of Harper's Bazaar UK. In 2015, the Spanish 15-M movement staged a massive protest via hologram projection, taking specific inspiration from the Kate Moss illusion. The Kate Moss illusion appeared in Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, a retrospective exhibition of McQueen's designs shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011 (the Met) and the V&A in 2015. In the original presentation at the Met, the Moss illusion was recreated in miniature, but in the V&A re-staging, it was presented in full size in its own room. According to Sam Gainsbury, who worked on production for the illusion, McQueen had "always wanted to show [the illusion] independently as a work of art", so the team ensured that it was staged that way for the V&A's version of the exhibit.
Analysis
Gothic tropes
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