Never before has a pair of shoes eclipsed the rest of the collection like the armadillo shoes. Armadillo shoes are Cheap Alexander McQueen from McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection Plato’s Atlantis, the last collection McQueen worked on independently.
The collection draws on nature, especially ancient reptiles and sea creatures, but also collides with technology and the future. The shoes were not only dramatic and intense, but also absurd, with a 31cm heel and a shape that was completely unconventional and ergonomic, causing a sensation in the fashion world.
McQueen often used the term “armor” to describe his women’s clothing, hoping that it would make women feel more confident and powerful, and the armadillo shoe was no exception, a reptilian armor with a thick skin and high heels that both rejected and seduced. Together with the dichotomies (ancient and future, nature and technology, beauty and ugliness…) presented throughout the collection, the armadillo shoe can be seen as a symbol of rejection and seduction. The armadillo shoe is a very McQueen. The spread of the armadillo shoe is probably due in large part to lady gaga.