WOMEN AS OPEN WOUNDS: FEAR, DESIRE, DISGUST AND THE IDEAL FEMININE IN THE WORKS OF ALEXANDER MCQUEEN AND JOHN GALLIANO

Starting from the notion of the Ideal Feminine, this paper discusses the representation of trauma and the portrayal of women as open wounds in the designs of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. Particularly, I explore how the McQueen’s Deadly Woman and Galliano’s Doll question the boundaries between mortality, sexuality and decay. By examining the relationship between fear, desire and disgust in the aesthetic representation of the wounded fashioned body, I argue that in their works disgust functions as an empowering emotion, contributing to the perception of the aversive fashioned body as a feministic act