Medium: Silk jacquard

Date: Fall/Winter 2009

Country: England

Credit: Museum purchase

​The elaborate feather pattern of this dress envelops the wearer in the primary component of avian beauty. In turn, the sculptural bustle and train suggest the tail of an exotic bird. “I am inspired by a feather’s shape, but also its color, its graphics, its weightlessness, and its engineering,” McQueen said. “I try to transpose the beauty of a bird to women.”

Object Number: 2016.63.1