The shoes were part of a collection called 'Plato's Atlantis' Spring/Summer 2010. McQueen said 'This collection was a statement about the future, the melt-down of our world due to global warming. 'Plato's Atlantis' showcased mankind as alien like creatures forced to adapt/evolve and live in the sea as the polar ice caps have melted'.
http://www.alexandermcqueen.com/int/en/corporate/archive2010_ss_womensp.aspx
http://www.iamfatterthanyou.com/2010/02/alexander-mcqueen-platos-atlantis/
This link will take you to a video of the whole run way show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVN4WUKIzjA
'When Charles Darwin wrote The Origin Of The Species, no one could have known that the ice cap would melt, that the waters would rise and that life on earth would have to evolve in order to live beneath the sea once more or perish. We came from water and now, with the help of stem cell technology and cloning, we must go back to it to survive.
When the waters rise, humanity will go back to the place from whence it came.
‘but then again, I’m no Nostradamus…’ – Alexander McQueen
Make no mistake, this is not sci-fi, this is evolution.
Alexander McQueen takes his signature engineered print to new technological heights. Every print is unique, engineered specifically for each individual garment'.
http://www.alexandermcqueen.com/int/en/corporate/archive2010_ss_womensp.aspx
http://thepandorian.com/2009/10/alexander-mcqueen-platos-atlantis/
'It could be that Alexander McQueen—oh, and Lady Gaga, remotely—crashed through a whole new frontier in the projection of fashion shows as worldwide live entertainment Tuesday night. McQueen's collection, Plato's Atlantis, was live-streamed on Nick Knight's SHOWstudio.com, intercut with the photographer's premade video footage. That was the plan anyway, until 30 minutes before the show, Gaga Twittered that McQueen was about to premiere her new single. She has a million followers. Inevitably, before the crashing of the frontier could quite come about, SHOWstudio itself crashed. Which may have replicated, in a whole new audience, the sensation of a young hopeful stuck outside a McQueen presentation, waving a standing ticket and being unable to get in.
Seen from on the spot, it was a big-budget production, for sure. There was a sparkling, illuminated runway in which two sinister, robotic movie cameras on gigantic black booms ran back and forth, while a screen played Knight's video of Raquel Zimmermann, lying on sand, naked, with snakes writhing across her body.
Then the models came out, dressed in short, reptile-patterned, digitally printed dresses, their gangly legs sunk in grotesque shoes that looked like the armored heads of a fantastical breed of antediluvian sea monster. McQueen, according to an internal logic detailed in a press release, was casting an apocalyptic forecast of the future ecological meltdown of the world: Humankind is made up of creatures that evolved from the sea, and we may be heading back to an underwater future as the ice cap dissolves'
http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/S2010RTW-AMCQUEEN
Lady Gaga was one of the first celebrities to have worn these shoes. They appeared in her video 'Bad Romance'.
Lady Gaga helped boost the knowledge of the heels. There was a big uproar the her wearing them as fashion critics all over the world were wondering what celebrity would be seen wearing them first.
http://www.last.fm/music/Lady+Gaga/+images/37893761
As the collection inspiration came from global warming, I looked into global warming debates that were happening at the same time as the collection was released.
I found a debate that was held at Oxford Union in May 2010:
'Lord Lawson of Blaby, Margaret Thatcher’s former finance minister, opened the case for the proposition by saying that the economic proposals put forward by the UN’s climate panel and its supporters did not add up. It would be better to wait and see whether the scientists had gotten it right. It was not sensible to make expensive spending commitments, particularly at a time of great economic hardship, when the effectiveness of the spending was gravely in doubt and when it might do more harm than good.
'At one point, Lord Lawson was interrupted by a US student, who demanded to know what was his connection with the Science and Public Policy Institute, and what were the Institute’s sources of funding. Lord Lawson was cheered when he said he neither knew nor cared who funded the Institute'.
Lord Monckton repeatedly interrupted Lord Whitty to ask him to give a reference in the scientific literature for his suggestion that 95% of scientists believed our influence on the climate was catastrophic. Lord Whitty was unable to provide the source for his figure, but said that everyone knew it was true. Under further pressure from Lord Monckton, Lord Whitty conceded that the figure should perhaps be 92%. Lord Monckton asked: “And your reference is?” Lord Whitty was unable to reply. Hon. Members began to join in, jeering “Your reference? Your reference?” Lord Whitty sat down looking baffled'.
'Lord Monckton, a former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the UK, concluded the case for the proposition. He drew immediate laughter and cheers when he described himself as “Christopher Walter, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, scholar, philanthropist, wit, man about town, and former chairman of the Wines and Spirits Committee of this honourable Society”. At that point his cummerbund came undone. He held it up to the audience and said, “If I asked this House how long this cummerbund is, you might telephone around all the manufacturers and ask them how many cummerbunds they made, and how long each type of cummerbund was, and put the data into a computer model run by a zitty teenager eating too many doughnuts, and the computer would make an expensive guess. Or you could take a tape-measure and” – glaring at the opposition across the despatch-box – “measure it!” [cheers]'.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/24/lord-monckton-wins-global-warming-debate-at-oxford-union/
'A report released by the British government warned the country’s National Health System to expect thousands more deaths and complications from heatwaves, malaria, and contaminated water as global warming effects progress in the next five years. The report, “Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK”, was written by Professor Bob Maynard and colleagues with the Health Protection Agency. It is being issued as official government advice to hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical institutions run by the government’s nationalized health care system.
The biggest danger to health, and the most likely to occur, is a major heatwave. The report predicts a heatwave will occur by 2012, causing between 3,000 and 10,000 deaths. Scientists put the odds of a heatwave in the south-east of England by that time at around 1 in 40. The report says: "In terms of conventional thinking about risks to health, 1 in 40 is high.” A French heatwave in 2003 caused the deaths of an estimated 14,000 people, most of them elderly'.
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/global-warming-effects-could-kill-10000-in-the-uk-by-2012/785
I also looked into Eco Fashion, and how fashion designers are now using environmentally friendly fabrics, and using natural dyes to help the environment and global warming.
'Sustainable fashion, also called eco fashion, is a part of the growing design philosophy and trend of sustainability, the goal of which is to create a system which can be supported indefinitely in terms of environmentalism and social responsibility. Sustainable fashion is part of the larger trend of sustainable design where a product is created and produced with consideration to the environmental and social impact it may have throughout its total life span, including its "carbon footprint". According to the May 2007 Vogue appears not to be a short-term trend but one could last multiple seasons.[1] While environmentalism used to manifest itself in the fashion world through a donation of percentage of sales of a product to a charitable cause, fashion designers are now re-introducing eco-conscious methods at the source through the use of environmentally friendly materials and socially responsible methods of production.
There are some organizations working to increase opportunities for sustainable designers. The National Association of Sustainable Fashion Designers is one of those organizations. Its purpose is to assist entrepreneurs with growing fashion related businesses that create social change and respect the environment. Sustainable Designers provides specialized triple bottom line education, training, and access to tools and industry resources that advance creative, innovative and high impact businesses. The organization’s mission is to create social change through design and fashion related businesses by providing education, training and programs that are transformative to the industry and to cultivate collaboration, sustainability and economic growth'.
http://www.treehugger.com/style/ecouterre-brings-eco-fashion-to-the-forefront.html
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