Highland Rape is the most controversial runway show of McQueen’s early career. While he claimed that the inspiration for the show was about England’s rape of Scotland, many critics were convinced that it was romanticizing the rape of women. Always sparking controversy, Lee sent models down the runway in torn clothing, posing in a distraught way; it was all too easy for reviewers to believe that the models were portraying women who had been raped. However, McQueen maintained that he was not a misogynist, and that they had misunderstood the historical reference.
Lee told Time Out Magazine in 1997: “[This collection] was a shout against English designers…doing flamboyant Scottish clothes. My father’s family originates from the Isle of Skye, and I’d studied the history of the Scottish upheavals and the Clearances. People were so unintelligent they thought this was about women being raped- yet Highland Rape was about England’s rape of Scotland.”
McQueen was clearly tired of designers romanticizing Scotland, which he saw in a much more cold light. He slashed lines open in the pieces, and tore apart lace in a violent way that expressed how much Scotland (and its people) were ravaged by the wars. He used his own family’s tartan for many pieces, and would continue to do so in later shows, including 1998’s Joan, and 2006’s The Widows of Culloden. While Highland Rape was seen at the time as angry and violent, this was the show that launched Alexander McQueen into fame, and would spark the heads of LVMH to choose him as John Galliano’s successor at the house of Givenchy.
