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"Armadillo" Shoes

Design House Alexander McQueen British
Designer Alexander McQueen British
spring/summer 2010
Not on view
The "Armadillo" boots of were part of Alexander McQueen’s spring/summer 2010 Plato’s Atlantis collection – the last fully-realized collection McQueen presented before his death in February 2010. For the show, inspired by Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), McQueen imagined humankind evolving to survive underwater and presented a fantastical posthuman hybrid aquatic creature with a bold and visionary statement: "There is no way back for me now. I am going to take you on journeys you never dreamed were possible.” The unusual shape of the "Armadillo" boots represent a claw-like extension of the leg and its execution in turquoise shagreen seems to reflect the light like the water above a coral reef, evoking one of the earth's most precious and threatened habitats.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: "Armadillo" Shoes
  • Design House: Alexander McQueen (British, founded 1992)
  • Designer: Alexander McQueen (British, 1969–2010)
  • Date: spring/summer 2010
  • Culture: British
  • Medium: shagreen (pastinachus sephen)
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, 2019
  • Object Number: 2019.255a, b
  • Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute

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