Alexander McQueen's Plato's Atlantis: A Show That Defined a Decade
On October 5th, 2009, Alexander McQueen premiered Plato’s Atlantis, a show that embodied innovation from its very inception and was the dawning of a new era of fashion. Built from an already unique premise, the Plato’s Atlantis show itself was a milestone in fashion history, all while becoming intertwined with the burgeoning fame of pop legend Lady Gaga and pioneering the consumption of fashion through various technological advancements.
Hosted on Nick Knight’s ShowStudio platform, Plato’s Atlantis was the first live-streamed fashion show. Further cementing its icon status in online culture, Lady Gaga, who had already cultivated a sizable following at that time, promoted the show via Twitter, attracting so much of her fanbase that ShowStudio’s server crashed.
The content of Plato’s Atlantis continued to enthrall viewers with a narrative of humanity returning to the oceans after having devastated the earth, visualized through the combination of snakeskin and sequins to symbolize the harmony between nature and fashion. Lady Gaga bolstered the show’s success once more, as this was the venue in which she first performed the song that would become a massive hit, “Bad Romance”. She wore the famous McQueen “armadillo shoes” during that performance and would feature them in the music video for “Bad Romance”.
Fittingly, this historic landmark occurred at the turn of the decade, preceding the emergence of social media platforms, online campaigns, and live-streaming that made the intricacies of the fashion industry more accessible to wider audiences. Plato’s Atlantis was Alexander McQueen’s last show before his tragic passing, but it has been immortalized by how profoundly it has revolutionized the online world of fashion.
Source: https://www.vogue.com/article/alexander-mcqueen-spring-2010-platos-atlantis
Report: Nia Hunt
At the rise of Covid-19 many of us first questioned the timeline of fashion week and would we see the regular calendar continue - the question weighed over many of us for months! It was refreshing to see design houses and designers across the globe take advantage of the uncertainty and plow into production mode - thus my interest in Jerri Reid New York - The Black Designer based in Brooklyn New York wow’d instagram with his latest collection paying homage to the Black Is King film which debuted earlier this year in July. I was taken aback at quick of a turn round the young designer produced and released his well crafted designs reflecting some of the films most memorable moments.