McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2009 collection Natural Dis-tinction, Un-Natural Selection was a pioneering exploration of digital print design that significantly contributed to the widespread (and ongoing) adoption of this technique in the fashion industry. Digitally manipulated images of crystals patterning this pair of dresses exemplify the collection’s themes—and McQueen’s fascination—with the interplay between the natural and the artificial.

This checkerboard suit from Scanners at right flaunts Alexander McQueen’s advanced cutting abilities: Curved or squared, on the grain or bias, the pattern pieces are meticulously arranged to create a vibrant optical illusion, visually sculpting the body. His technique—first honed during Savile Row apprenticeships—can be compared to that of renowned American designer Gilbert Adrian, who similarly excelled in the graphic pattern placement of tailored suits at left.

This jacket from Joan (Fall/Winter 1998-99) reproduces an 1845 daguerreotype by Carl Gustav Oehme, an early adopter of the medium who trained with its inventor, Louis Daguerre. Superimposing Oehme’s image atop a sequined ground textile disrupts the print registration, producing a shadowy effect that further emphasizes the spectral quality of McQueen’s collection, named for martyred saint Joan of Arc.

In a dress from What a Merry Go Round (Fall/Winter 2001-2), McQueen reinterprets the 1920s robe de style silhouette, with its straight cut and volume at the hips, into a sequin-covered dress with rows of tulle and lace. Its green color palette recalls the nightlife of Germany’s Weimar Republic, which is the setting of the film Cabaret (1972), one of the designer’s inspirations for the collection.

Early-nineteenth-century fashions served as a reference in McQueen’s form-fitting light purple dress with empire waistline from Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, as well as two women’s coats for No. 13 that were modeled after period men’s tailcoats. One look, with deconstructed lapels that button to the front collar at left, has a skirt that may be buttoned in back into a tail or buttoned in front to create the skirt of a frock coat—two styles that prevailed throughout the 1800s.

Among the McQueen looks inspired by the eighteenth century is this black and red dress with long, draped box pleats at the front of the body, inspired by the back of a robe à la française. A reference to the stomacher, which typically accessorizes the center-front of period gowns, appears at the V-shaped back of the dress, completing the designer’s vision for backward construction.

In Flemish court painter Frans Pourbus II’s portrait of a young King Louis XIII of France, the artist renders the monarch with exquisite attention to detail, especially in his starched lace collar, slashed satin doublet and sleeves, and gold scrolling-vine embroidery. A similar attention to detail is found in this McQueen white dress from Sarabande, which includes a small ruff at the neck and elaborate gold beading throughout the chest in a similar pattern around a mirrored red “cQ” in reference to the McQueen logo.

McQueen’s Irere collection was strongly informed by the film The Mission (1986) about late-sixteenth-century Christian missionaries in South America. An ensemble with a quilted-leather doublet strung with rosaries is similar to a 1580 print of a lady by Hendrik Goltzius. A perforated and embossed leather jacket also recalls the fashion for slashing in menswear, illustrated in Goltzius’s print of a Polish nobleman (see both prints on the wall to the left).

By understanding the trades of tailoring and dressmaking, McQueen could masterfully deconstruct clothing. A tweed and leather ensemble from Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (Fall/Winter 2002–3) subverts outerwear, underwear, and accessories in a jacket tailored with a belted bra and harness, with lacing highlighting the back of the jacket (like a spine) and the sides of a pair of jeans. A body-conscious dress from Scanners of wrapped bands of silk with zippers at the side seams reimagines dresses made famous by Azzedine Alaïa, whom McQueen greatly admired.

Complex garment patterns emerge in McQueen’s dress designs, informed both by his training and his tactile sensitivity to cloth. This grouping of dresses made after McQueen’s appointment to Givenchy attest to his skills in lightness acquired while at the couture house. Draping forms the basis of a pink dress from Irere (Spring/Summer 2003), while a black dress with insets and godets from Pantheon ad Lucem (Fall/Winter 2004–5) and a lace look from the pre–Fall/Winter 2007–8 collection demonstrate his proficiency in generating sinuous movement around the body.