McQueen was also deft at meta-narrative, often turning his shows into commentary on the fashion industry itself. In one show, the catwalk was a carousel that carried the grotesquely made up models around, reflecting the fashion’s merry-go-round nature where a façade is necessary, no matter how hideous the reality behind the smile. In another show, McQueen staged a chess game, and, as models fell one by one like pawns, the game’s meaning was not lost on the audience.
     Perhaps his most famously defiant show was Voss, from Spring/Summer 2001, “In Voss he had the mirrored case, so for an hour the fashion people in the front row had to confront their own image,” said Koda. “We are so used to being the viewer, the critic, the judge, and once our own image is there, it’s a really fascinating and subtle way in which he politicized a very simple thing.”
     McQueen’s work was many things – brilliant, unconventional, controversial. But as I was leaving the exhibition, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of pride, a pride in the sheer force of human imagination that can produce such incredible, savage beauty.