Marriage License was first published as the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1955. That same year the painting was included in an exhibition of Rockwell's work at the Corcoran Gallery of Art organized and paid for by the magazine. After the show, the work returned to Rockwell's collection until 1969 when it and thirty-four other paintings – including the Four Freedoms (1943) and Shuffleton's Barbershop (1950) – were permanently loaned to the Old Corner House in Stockbridge. In 1972 the painting was included in Norman Rockwell: A Sixty Year Retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum on the condition that it was not part of the national tour of the same name.
Rockwell donated the entirety of his personal collection of paintings, including Marriage License, to the Norman Rockwell Art Collection Trust in 1973. The trust became the core of the Norman Rockwell Museum's permanent collection after the artist died in 1979. Marriage License has been displayed elsewhere only once since joining the collection, for the November 1999 – February 2002 tour, Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People, which visited the High Museum of Art, Chicago History Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, San Diego Museum of Art, Phoenix Art Museum, Norman Rockwell Museum, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.


The painting has been generally well received. In the catalog for the 1972 retrospective exhibition of Rockwell's works, museum director Thomas Buechner described the painting, along with Breaking Home Ties (1954), as the artist's two best works. Art critic Deborah Solomon found the painting to be a "peak of [Rockwell's] talents as a realist painter", and novelist John Updike praised the painting's small and "unnecessary" details. Popular culture historian Christopher Finch considered Marriage License to be iconic, one of Rockwell's "most successful canvases", and belonging "with the very finest examples of Rockwell's art". Writing in 1955 for The Washington Post, critic Leslie Judd Portner described the painting as boring and "pedestrian" in her scathing review of the Rockwell exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
Philosopher of art Marcia Muelder Eaton uses Marriage License and Vermeer's The Milkmaid as foils in Art and Nonart: Reflections on an Orange Crate and a Moose Call to explore the boundaries of "aesthetic value" by testing a series of assertions about what makes "good art". She tries to test the idea that only one of the two paintings draws from earlier works of art, but fails. Much like Deborah Solomon and Dave Ferman of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Eaton notes that Marriage License is influenced by Dutch old masters, based on its use of light and dark interiors. When analyzing the technical skill needed to produce the works, she finds that both artists have a high degree of craftsmanship. Where Eaton finds the paintings differ is on the subject matter and presentation. She describes Rockwell's work as "cheaply achieved" and "childish" due to the shallow symbolism and compares it to a mass-market cartoon. Eaton later writes that she has "very little, if any, drive to hear what others have to say about it [Marriage License]" due to the lack of interpretation a viewer performs.


As a well-known Rockwell painting, Marriage License has been used as inspiration for other works. There were plans for a Christmas-themed film based on the painting and several other Rockwells in 1979. The production company filmed exterior shots, but production stopped in January because Stockbridge's Board of Selectmen was not properly notified of the project. Despite several attempts the producers could not receive permission to film largely because the Selectmen wanted the best possible deal for the town.
As a response to Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the first state supreme court decision in favor of same-sex marriage, in 2004, artist Richard Williams created a parody of Marriage License for Mad magazine titled If Norman Rockwell Depicted the 21st Century. The parody stays close to the source material but with the cast iron stove replaced by a photocopier, the spittoon becoming a trash can, and a pair of gay men signing their marriage license. The woman's yellow dress in the original is paralleled by the shirt of the man closer to the viewer.
Gender studies scholar Katie Oliviero interpreted If Norman Rockwell ... as a commentary on the "competing frameworks of civil marriage's competing public and private meanings". Psychologists Earl Ginter, Gargi Roysircar and Lawrence Gerstein saw it instead as a commentary on the role of government in deciding which marriages are valid and which ones are not. The parody was re-posted in 2012 on Mad's website in celebration of the Second Circuit striking down the Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor.


Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty is a 2021 book by Australian constitutional law specialists Harry Hobbs and George Williams about micronations and their legal status. Written from an academic perspective, it is one of few works on micronational movements and the earliest-published book to focus largely on the legal aspect of micronations. The book concerns the definition of statehood, the place of micronations within international law, people's motivations for declaring them, the micronational community and the ways by which such entities mimic sovereign states. In 2022 Hobbs and Williams published a book for a broader audience, How to Rule Your Own Country: The Weird and Wonderful World of Micronations.


Micronations are political entities that claim independence and mimic acts of sovereignty as if they were a sovereign state, but lack any legal recognition. According to Collins English Dictionary, many exist "only on the internet or within the private property of [their] members" and seek to simulate a state rather than to achieve international recognition; their activities are generally non-threatening, often leading sovereign states to not actively contest the territorial claims they put forth. Legally speaking, micronation as a word has no basis in international law.
Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty is authored by the Australian lawyers and legal academics Harry Hobbs, an associate professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Technology Sydney, and George Williams, a professor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Planning and Assurance at the University of New South Wales. Both Hobbs and Williams specialise in international law; Hobbs is a human rights lawyer and Williams is an Australian constitutional law professor. Hobbs and Williams have published several articles together in academic journals regarding micronations since 22 April 2021. Prior to the book's publication, Hobbs had written about Indigenous sovereignty and Indigenous people's aspirations in Australia in 2020. Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty is written from an academic perspective, and is one of a few works on micronations and the earliest-published book to focus largely on their status in regards to the law.
The earliest-published book about micronationalism was How to Start Your Own Country (1979) by libertarian science-fiction author Erwin S. Strauss, in which Strauss documents various approaches to sovereignty and their chances of success. This was followed by two French-language publications—L'Etat c'est moi: histoire des monarchies privées, principautés de fantaisie et autres républiques pirates in 1997 by writer and historian Bruno Fuligni and Ils ne siègent pas à l'ONU in 2000 by founder and head of the French Institute of Micropatrology, Fabrice O'Driscoll, which details over 600 micronations. In 2006, travel guide book publisher Lonely Planet published Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations, a humorous gazetteer that profiles various micronations and information on their locations, flags, stamps and other facts.
Although academic interest in micronationalism is limited, the study of the phenomenon—known as micropatriology—has been gaining momentum since the 2010s, and two journals entitled Shima and Transformations have frequently published articles regarding micronationalism. Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty was published by Cambridge University Press as an ebook on 23 December 2021, and in hardcover and paperback formats in January 2022. Published as part of Cambridge University Press's Cambridge Studies in Constitutional Law series edited by David Dyzenhaus and Thomas Poole, Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty is 256 pages long.


The book has six chapters, a preface, an appendix of micronations discussed, and a full index. The first chapter, "Prince Leonard Prepares for War", profiles several micronationalists and their reasonings for declaring independence. The chapter's title refers to Leonard Casley, Prince of the Principality of Hutt River micronation, who declared, then undeclared, war on Australia as he believed a state undefeated in war must be recognised. Chapter two, "Statehood and Micronations", concerns the definition of statehood within international law, legal recognition, Indigenous nations and attempted definitions of sovereignty such as the Montevideo Convention, with Hobbs and Williams concluding that the meaning of sovereignty is subjective. They note that micronation has no formal or legal definition, and define the term as follows: micronations are political entities that claim independence and mimic acts of sovereignty as if they were a sovereign state, but lack any legal recognition. They draw a distinction from states with limited recognition, quasi-states and autonomous Indigenous nations as, according to them, micronations lack the legal basis within international law for their existence.
The third chapter, "Motivations"—expanding on chapter one—explores the motivations and influences of micronationalists for operating their own micronations. Chapter four, "Performing Sovereignty", explores how micronations simulate states by creating their own coinage, passports and postage stamps. It also explores diplomacy between micronations and the intermicronational community as a whole. Chapter five, "State Responses", concerns the reactions to micronations by countries and world governments. Hobbs and Williams write that most micronations are ignored as they pose little threat to their country's sovereignty, whereas micronationalists who individually commit crimes, such as tax evasion, are dealt with in court as citizens rather than receiving any recognition as being part of a secessionist movement. In the sixth and final chapter, "The Future of Micronationalism", the authors explore the continued operation of micronations as well as the continuation of the intermicronational community.


Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty has received positive reviews for its legal and non-dismissive academic approach to micronations. Both Vicente Bicudo de Castro, writing for the journal Shima, and law PhD candidate Mark Fletcher of Alternative Law Journal appreciated Hobbs and Williams' serious analysis of micronations in regards to secessionist movements. De Castro noted that their legal perspective on micronations was something he had not previously seen in other works about micronations, citing The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations and Let's Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar (2015). Both Fletcher and de Castro lauded Hobbs and Williams' definition of micronation as helpful, although Jack Corbett, professor of politics at the University of Southampton and reviewing the book for Small States & Territories, disliked that the work offered only a surface analysis on the definition of sovereignty while mostly implying the subjectivity of statehood.
The authors' detailed descriptions of various micronations, rather than solely focusing on their claims to legitimacy, received praise. Corbett wrote that this brought upon a welcomed "light-heartedness". Conversely, Fletcher thought that Hobbs and Williams could have better explored the legal means by which micronations attempt to assert their legitimacy by considering these attempts from the micronationalist's point of view. Nevertheless, he noted that an underlying question regarding micronational claims is how to distinguish valid legal claims from "law-flavoured nonsense", and that it is a question that Hobbs and Williams investigate "extremely well". De Castro considered the authors' analysis on the legitimacy of micronational claims as superior to Strauss' analysis of them in How to Start Your Own Country.
The book's usefulness to scholars—particularly those interested in micronationalism—was widely noted; Corbett contended that Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty was without a doubt the "definitive text" on micronationalism. De Castro wrote that it should be embraced as a foundation for further research into the topic. Fletcher stated that Hobbs and Williams did an admirable job analysing a large amount of grey literature to gather enough material for an "academic discussion" on micronations.
On 15 August 2022, Hobbs gave an online seminar hosted by the Australian National University's College of Law in which he discussed and summarised Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty. A follow-up to Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty by Hobbs and Williams for general audiences, entitled How to Rule Your Own Country: The Weird and Wonderful World of Micronations, was published in November 2022 by the University of New South Wales Press.


Neptune (Spring/Summer 2006) is the twenty-seventh collection by British designer Alexander McQueen for his eponymous fashion house. It took inspiration from classical Greek clothing, 1980s fashion, and the work of artists influential in that decade. The runway show was staged during Paris Fashion Week on 7 October 2005 at the industrial warehouse of the Imprimerie Nationale. Two main phases were presented, with 56 looks total: the first phase comprised monochrome black clothing, while the second featured a white, green, and gold palette. The collection's clothing and runway show both lacked McQueen's signature theatricality, and critical reception at launch and in retrospect was negative. Items from Neptune appeared in the 2022 exhibition Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse.


British fashion designer Alexander McQueen was known for his imaginative, sometimes controversial designs. During his nearly twenty-year career, he explored a broad range of ideas and themes, including historicism, romanticism, femininity, sexuality, and death. His fashion shows were theatrical to the point of verging on performance art. Sarah Burton, his assistant during much of his career, later recalled that he "just didn't like doing normal catwalk shows".
In the years preceding Neptune (Spring/Summer 2006), however, McQueen had reached a stage of exhaustion with his career and the fashion industry, at one point saying, "I go in, I do my business, do the parties, and leave." Some critics felt that his work – particularly The Man Who Knew Too Much (Autumn/Winter 2005), which immediately preceded Neptune – had become increasingly conventional, prompting concerns that he was losing his touch for showmanship. Others, believing that McQueen tended to alternate between low-key and spectacular shows, anticipated that Neptune would be a return to extravagance.


The collection was named for Neptune, the sea god of Roman mythology. The theming was loose, with elements drawn from the clothing of ancient Greece and fashion of the 1980s. There was a notable influence from power dressing, a trend in which women embraced business wear – especially tailored suits and shoulder pads – in order to project a powerful or successful presence in the workplace.
In his pre-show statement, McQueen said "I'm bringing sex back to the market. Women want to be excited again". He called Neptune a transitional collection, as he was "trying to find my niche. What do I do best? Sexy tailoring, sexy clothes." Accordingly, many designs were cut to be revealing, with short hemlines, sheer panels, and skin otherwise exposed.
Draped garments and column dresses referenced ancient Greek clothing. Look 55 from the runway show referenced the chiton, an ancient Greek garment, but substituted the traditional belt with a panel of beaded mesh, and had a modern miniskirt hemline. Looks 28 and 29, both long slim white dresses, bore similarities to classical caryatid columns as well as dresses from the classical revival of the 19th century. Some garments had decorative elements that displayed creatures from Greek mythology, such as the hippocampus and the phoenix.
The clothing in Neptune had clear references to designers whose work helped define the look of the 1980s: Tunisian designer Azzedine Alaïa, who was known for his body-conscious designs, and Italian designer Gianni Versace, whose work has been described as walking a thin line between seductive and tawdry. Critics also saw inspiration from Issey Miyake in the tightly pleated skirts of some ensembles, including Look 13. McQueen cited additional inspiration from fashion photographer Guy Bourdin, artist Jean-Paul Goude, both French, and Jamaican performer Grace Jones, all of whom contributed to the hard, high-glamour look of the 1980s.


The runway show for Neptune was staged during Paris Fashion Week on 7 October 2005 at the industrial warehouse of the Imprimerie Nationale in Paris. The invitation was a black and white photo of a model in a bubble bath whose nude form was only partially obscured by bubbles. McQueen's longtime collaborator Shaun Leane provided jewellery. Joseph Bennett, who had designed all of McQueen's runways since No. 13 (Spring/Summer 1999), returned to handle set design.
The show's simplicity was an extreme departure from the over-the-top spectacles reviewers had come to expect from McQueen: models walked down an unadorned 30-foot (9 m) concrete runway with stark lighting, posed briefly, then returned without fanfare. It was closer in style to the budget-strapped shows from his early days, such as Nihilism (Spring/Summer 1994). The soundtrack was built from female artists known for their self-confidence: primarily 1980s rock music, represented by songs from Siouxsie and the Banshees and Suzi Quatro, as well as tracks from Ike and Tina Turner, Missy Elliott, and Aretha Franklin.
All models were at least 5'11", echoing the trend for Amazonian supermodels of the 1980s. Bare legs and gladiator sandals with stiletto heels further emphasised their stature. Eugene Souleiman styled hair, which was slicked back on top and left to flow in waves across the shoulders. Charlotte Tilbury styled makeup in a "simple and glamorous" style. Some models carried handbags, which McQueen had debuted in the previous season. At the show's end, after the models took their final turn, McQueen appeared to take his bow. He wore a shirt reading "We Love You Kate" as a gesture of public support toward his friend, English supermodel Kate Moss, who at the time of the show was embroiled in a scandal over alleged drug use.
Two main phases were presented, with 56 looks total. The first half comprised monochrome black ensembles with white, silver, and grey accents and a focus on tailoring, while the second half involved outfits in a palette of white, green, and gold with a draped "Greek goddess" look. Looks 33, 51, and 54 from the second phase featured metallic bodysuits with extreme cut-outs, suggestive of swimwear. Some reviewers found that the second phase bore similarities to Search for the Golden Fleece, McQueen's 1997 debut as head designer at Givenchy – that collection also took inspiration from Greek mythology and had a gold and white palette.


Lacking McQueen's signature theatricality, Neptune was poorly received at launch. Reviewers who expected the return of his bombastic runway shows were disappointed by the minimalist experience. Jess Cartner-Morley of The Guardian noted that aside from McQueen's appearance in the Kate Moss shirt, the collection lacked his customary runway "shock tactics". The presentation forced the focus onto the clothing, not necessarily to its benefit. Sarah Mower's review for Vogue was uniformly negative: she found both show and clothing dull. Both the staff writer for Women's Wear Daily and Cathy Horyn of The New York Times commented on the aggressive aesthetic of the collection. Horyn wrote that McQueen had "grasped the notion of sexiness technically but not with feeling or belief".
The overly commercial designs led to the assumption that McQueen was designing for sales and producing clothes that lacked his usual artistic flair. Mower stated that she was not criticising McQueen for wanting to sell clothing, but felt that Neptune did not live up to his artistic capabilities. The staff writer for Women's Wear Daily agreed that McQueen might have been designing with sales numbers in mind, suggesting that McQueen was "stifling his brilliance". Horyn compared McQueen and fellow British designer John Galliano – a common occurrence due to their roughly parallel career arcs and similarly maximalist styles – noting that both seemed to be reining in their creativity in favour of commercial appeal that season.
Several critics drew unflattering comparisons to costumes from genre fiction. Mower's review reserved particular scorn for the metallic bodysuits, which she wrote had "all the finesse of something left over from an eighties sci-fi TV series". The staff writer for Women's Wear Daily found the collection had failed to achieve the Greek goddess look McQueen was going for, and called it "a meeting of Xena and a well-turned-out sci-fi high priestess". Cartner-Morley described the collection as an "ill-matched" mix between 1970s rock and roll fashion and a Greek goddess look, with a result that looked more like comic book superheroine Wonder Woman.
Some reviewers found positive aspects amid their criticism. Women's Wear Daily found the clothing in Neptune "more refined" than in Golden Fleece and called out Look 29, a long white column dress, as potential red carpet wear, saying it should "prove hyper telegenic". Horyn found Look 35, a tailored white trouser suit, to be the "smartest" and "subtlest" in the collection.


The collection is viewed with little enthusiasm in retrospect. In her 2012 biography of McQueen, Judith Watt wrote that it "screamed Cinecittà kitsch", referring to the Cinecittà film studio in Rome. In her 2015 book Gods and Kings, Dana Thomas called it a "soulless exercise" indicative of McQueen's late-career malaise, and wrote that the "only thing notable about that show" was the Kate Moss T-shirt. Andrew Wilson does not even discuss the clothing in Blood Beneath the Skin, his 2015 biography of McQueen, mentioning the collection only to note the supportive gesture for Moss. Introducing the collection in Alexander McQueen: Unseen (2016), fashion theorist Claire Wilcox remarked that it was "perhaps the closest McQueen ever got to staging a beauty contest, albeit for superwomen."
The retrospective exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty did not include any clothing from Neptune in either its 2011 staging at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art or its 2015 staging at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. Items from Neptune owned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art appeared in Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse, a 2022 exhibition that explored McQueen's work as it related to art history. Neptune was placed in the "Mythos" section of the exhibition, which examined collections inspired by religion and mythology. The exhibition compared the collection's long white dresses to Caryatids of the Four Continents (c. 1867) by French sculptor Aimé Jules Dalou, noting that both evoked the idea of women as "pillars of strength".
In 2017, Shaun Leane auctioned a number of pieces he had created for the house at Sotheby's in New York, including three arm cuffs and a torc necklace from Neptune. The arm cuffs sold for an average of approximately $2,900, and the necklace for $3,750. Fashion collector Jennifer Zuiker auctioned her McQueen collection in 2020, including at least two pieces from Neptune. A nude bodysuit with severe cut-outs (Look 54) sold for a reported $3,437, while a green minidress with jewelled accents (Look 56) sold for a reported $6,875.
In the final episode of Canadian sitcom Schitt's Creek, which aired in April 2020, the character Moira Rose (played by Catherine O'Hara) wears Look 28 from Neptune as part of her ensemble for officiating a wedding. Series co-creator Dan Levy sourced it from a consignment store, and described the beaded skull on the back of the dress as the reason he picked it. Milly Alcock wore Look 38, a long cream dress with gold chains for bodice, to the 2022 premiere of House of the Dragon.


"Obsessed" (stylized in all lowercase) is a song by American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo from Guts (Spilled), the 2024 deluxe edition of her second studio album, Guts (2023). Rodrigo wrote it with Annie Clark (also known as St. Vincent) and its producer, Dan Nigro. Geffen Records released it as a single alongside the deluxe edition on March 22, 2024. A rock, pop rock, dance-rock, pop-punk, and power pop song with punk rock, grunge, and pop metal influences, "Obsessed" details Rodrigo's jealousy and preoccupation with her partner's ex-girlfriend.
Music critics believed "Obsessed" achieved an edgier sound than Rodrigo's previous output and directed praise towards its upbeat nature and lyrics. In the United Kingdom, the song peaked at number 10 on the UK singles chart and became Rodrigo's eighth top-10 single. It reached the top 20 in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United States. "Obsessed" received a platinum certification in Australia and silver in the United Kingdom.
Mitch Ryan directed the music video for "Obsessed", which depicts Rodrigo facing her partner's ex-girlfriends in a beauty pageant and performing the song in an adjoining room. She included it on the set list for her 2024–2025 concert tour, the Guts World Tour, where she sang it while spinning around and played a guitar solo. These performances received positive reviews alongside comparisons to 1990s rock artists, and the song attained viral popularity on video-sharing service TikTok.


At the age of 19, Olivia Rodrigo conceived her second studio album, Guts (2023), while experiencing "lots of confusion, mistakes, awkwardness & good old fashioned teen angst". Dan Nigro produced every track on it. They wrote over 100 songs, of which Rodrigo included the more rock-oriented tracks on the album because they drew a bigger reaction from her audiences during live shows. Out of the 25 songs recorded, 12 made it onto the standard edition of Guts. Rodrigo excluded some of them to not overpower the tracklist with too many similar songs and believed they would be released at some point in the future. She had recorded the track "Obsessed" in 2021 after writing it with Nigro and Annie Clark, a mentor to her during the album's creation process.
Two days before the album's release, Rodrigo uploaded a parody infomercial which teased the names of four additional tracks, including "Obsessed". They were each included as a hidden track on a different color variant of its vinyls, with "Obsessed" appearing on some of them. Third Man Records released the four tracks on a limited-edition vinyl, titled Guts: The Secret Tracks, on November 24, 2023, to commemorate Record Store Day.
In 2024, "Obsessed" became the only hidden track to be included on the set list of Rodrigo's Guts World Tour (2024–2025), and it attained viral popularity on video-sharing service TikTok. In March 2024, Rodrigo's fan hotline began playing a snippet of "Obsessed", and it was subsequently announced as a single alongside the album's deluxe edition, Guts (Spilled) (2024). She stated her enjoyment about performing the song on the Guts World Tour but noted that it had already been among her favorite tracks. Geffen Records promoted it to contemporary hit radio stations in the United States on March 22.


"Obsessed" is 2 minutes and 50 seconds long. Nigro produced the song and provided vocal production, and he handled engineering with Dave Schiffman and Ryan Linvill. He played guitar, bass, synthesizer, and drum programming; St. Vincent played guitar; and Garret Ray played drums. Spike Stent mixed the song at SLS Studios in London, and Randy Merrill mastered it. Recording took place in Amusement Studios in Los Angeles.
"Obsessed" is a rock, pop rock, dance-rock, pop-punk, and power pop with influences of punk rock, grunge, and pop metal. The song opens with Rodrigo harmonizing with herself: "Da da-da-da da-da-da", before yelling with increasing force. It later incorporates ripped guitars, distorted vocals, heavy bass, and drums. "Obsessed" has gentle verses but a loud chorus, during which it becomes more panicky according to Billboard Philippines' Gabriel Saulog. Eddino Abdul Hadi of The Straits Times likened this dynamic to old alternative rock bands, and Aadya Dusad of the South China Morning Post compared the song to the work of Avril Lavigne.
The lyrics of "Obsessed" are about Rodrigo's jealousy and preoccupation with her partner's ex-girlfriend. The theme is explored through a sapphic narrative, similarly to the track "Lacy" from the album's standard edition. "Obsessed" is also about insecurity, channeling the negative inner voice in teenagers' minds, and their persistent obsessive and envious thoughts. Rodrigo admits to spending unusual amounts of time thinking about and looking at pictures of the partner's ex and researching personal details like her astrological sign and blood type. In the chorus, she wonders if the ex had slept in the partner's bed and warns him to be careful because she recalls everything he has told Rodrigo about her. In the bridge, Rodrigo asks him questions about the ex's sexual performance and behavior and if she was well-traveled and knowledgeable.


Critical reviews for "Obsessed" were generally positive, with some highlighting its upbeat nature. Variety's Chris Willman believed that like other songs on Guts: The Secret Tracks, which were "B+ tracks at worst", it was deserving of a placement on the main edition of Guts. He and the Official Charts Company's George Griffiths both described "Obsessed" as a "banger"; Willman thought it fit with the more upbeat songs on the album, and the latter positively compared it to Katy Perry's song "I Kissed A Girl" (2008) and Charli XCX's album Sucker (2014). Notion found the song catchy, and Uproxx's Lexi Lane described it as a standout and included it in the website's weekly roundup of the Best New Pop Music.
Some critics believed "Obsessed" achieved an edgier sound than Rodrigo's previous output. Including it at number 25 in Billboard's list of the best songs of 2024 as of June, Andrew Unterberger stated that it was her "most deliciously thrashing" and "least-likely radio hit", unsure if its production hurt or helped its commercial prospects. Steffanee Wang of Nylon believed the song was the "edgiest" Rodrigo had ever sounded and she should take the same direction in her future material, and Andrew Pulver of The Guardian opined that she had never sounded more scathing or biting. Hadi described her delivery as progressively manic and thought it was perfectly complemented by the chorus's captivating hook.
Others commented on the lyrics. Hadi thought they accurately encapsulated adolescent drama, and Dusad believed "Obsessed" expertly captured the theme of insecurity in relationships and would be relatable to teenagers who are insecure about the topic as well as enjoyable at karaoke bars. She picked two of the most memorable lyrics: "I'm staring at her like I wanna get hurt" and "I'm so obsessed with your ex." The track was included on a critical list of the best songs of 2024 at number nine by Business Insider's Callie Ahlgrim.


"Obsessed" debuted at number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100 issued for April 6, 2024. The song became Rodrigo's seventh to reach the top 10 of the Pop Airplay chart, at number 10. It was her ninth to achieve the same milestone on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, at number 2. In Canada, "Obsessed" entered at number 20 on the Canadian Hot 100 issued for the same date. The song debuted at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart and became Rodrigo's eighth top-10 single. It was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry.
In Australia, "Obsessed" entered at number 16 and received a platinum certification from the Australian Recording Industry Association. The song charted at number 26 in New Zealand. It debuted at number 17 on the Billboard Global 200. "Obsessed" also reached number 12 in Ireland, number 20 on the Japan Hot Overseas chart, number 43 in Greece, number 54 in Portugal, number 59 in Sweden, number 73 in Austria and the Netherlands, and number 92 in Poland.


Mitch Ryan directed the music video for "Obsessed". On March 20, 2024, Rodrigo uploaded a teaser of it, in which she proceeds into a hall full of her partner's exes in white dresses. Each woman dons a sash bearing different superlatives like "Miss Still His 'Closest Friend'", "Miss 2 Summers Ago", and "Miss Mom's Favorite", while Rodrigo's reads: "Miss Right Now". The hairstylist Clayton Hawkins styled Rodrigo's hair into rough pixie cut bangs, with gentle flowing Bohemian waves reminiscent of the 1970s and two long braids. Her outfit was a gothic and bare-shouldered black prom dress with an overlay and Steve Madden's Lotti Mary Jane loafers and socks. The video was released two days later.
In the video, Rodrigo enters a hotel ballroom and encounters the partner's exes, one of whom blows smoke towards her. The women compete in a beauty pageant titled "Exes Gala", which turns into an award show where Rodrigo presents them trophies bearing titles like "The Life of Every Fucking Party,", "Good with Kids", and "She Even Speaks Kindly About Me". She gives a deadpan facial expression during most of the video, which Saulog believed represents her envy towards the exes. In other scenes, Rodrigo performs the song in an adjoining room with a tuxedo-clad band and sings the bridge while encircled by some of the exes. The video concludes with her cleaning up the venue after everyone else has left.
Saulog thought the events in the video represent the chaos in Rodrigo's mind: "[an] almost rage-filled party in her head". Rolling Stone's Tomás Mier described the video as a "fever dream", and Rania Aniftos of Billboard believed the concept flawlessly complements its lyrics about envy. It was nominated for Best Cinematography at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards and Best International Pop Video at the 2024 UK Music Video Awards.


On the Guts World Tour, "Obsessed" appears as part of a set of rock-oriented songs, alongside "Brutal" (2021), "All-American Bitch" (2023), "Good 4 U" (2021), and "Get Him Back!" (2023), which together recalls 1990s rock artists like Alanis Morissette and Gwen Stefani according to Chicago Sun-Times' Selena Fragassi. After a white sheet burning to ashes is projected on a screen during a progressive rock-metal interlude, symbolizing "the death of innocence" according to The Tennessean's Audrey Gibbs, Rodrigo sings "Brutal". She performs "Obsessed" in a red bodysuit while spinning around on the ground and being shot by a camera from below. Rodrigo is joined by a seven-piece support band, from whom she clutches a drumstick and tosses it into the audience. She concludes with a solo on Music Man's St. Vincent Goldie signature guitar.
Performances of the song received a highly positive fan reaction; many critics described it as a highlight, and Mier believed it was delivered "as if it were a single". Kevin C. Johnson of St. Louis Post-Dispatch considered it the show's "most badass moment", and Melissa Ruggieri of USA Today praised the use of camera effects. Critics also characterized the performance as influenced by several genres. Michael Rietmulder of The Seattle Times thought it was influenced by grunge, and Sarah John of Nylon believed it was one of the moments that encapsulated the "pop-punk and riot-grrrl sensibilities" demonstrated throughout the show. Writing for the Vancouver Sun, Stuart Derdeyn likened the energy to Elastica and Hole and thought Rodrigo was a convincing rock performer, while USA Today's Ed Masley opined that it leaned into the reckless vitality of punk and the post-Nirvana alternative rock of the 1990s. A rehearsal video of her performing "Obsessed" was uploaded on April 9, 2024. Rodrigo opened her Lollapalooza Chile set with the song in March 2025.


Credits are adapted from the liner notes of Guts (Spilled).


Olivia Rodrigo – vocals, background vocals, songwriter, rhythm guitar on live performances
Dan Nigro – producer, songwriter, engineer, guitar, vocal producer, bass, synthesizer, drum programming, background vocals
St. Vincent – songwriter, guitar, background vocals
Garret Ray – drums
Dave Schiffman – engineer
Ryan Linvill – engineer
Chappell Roan – background vocals
Randy Merrill – mastering
Spike Stent – mixing


"Open Arms" is a song by American singer-songwriter SZA from her second studio album, SOS (2022), featuring American rapper Travis Scott. It is a ballad backed by an acoustic guitar, conceived as part of an effort to explore soundscapes outside of SZA's usual R&B-leaning music. The lyrics are addressed to a former lover, whom the narrator leaves for the sake of her self-esteem despite her persistent feelings of attachment to him. A tribute to SZA's deceased grandmother, Norma Rowe, begins the song, done in the form of a skit; Rowe's vocals featured prominently on SZA's debut album, Ctrl (2017).
Upon release, "Open Arms" charted in the United States, Canada, and Australia, with a number 67 peak on the Billboard Global 200. Critics focused on Scott's appearance on the song—some considered him a fitting addition, welcoming his uncharacteristically gentle tone on the third verse. "Open Arms" marks his fourth collaboration with SZA; a solo version appears on the website-exclusive digital edition of SOS, released in January 2023. The following month, SZA began the SOS Tour, and she regularly included "Open Arms" on the concerts' set lists. An alternate version of the song was included on the February 9, 2025, reissue version of Lana, which is a solo version of the song featuring just SZA's verses.


SZA released her debut studio album, Ctrl, in 2017. Primarily an R&B album that deals with themes like heartbreak, it received widespread acclaim for SZA's vocals and the eclectic musical style, as well as the emotional impact and confessional nature of the songwriting. The album brought SZA to mainstream fame, and critics credit it with establishing her status as a major figure in contemporary pop and R&B music and pushing the boundaries of the R&B genre. Her next studio album was therefore highly anticipated, and she alluded to its completion as early as August 2019 during an interview with DJ Kerwin Frost.
From April to May 2022, SZA told media outlets that she had recently finished the album in Hawaii and said that it was coming soon. For the album, named SOS (2022), she sought to prove her musical versatility and combine her "traditional" R&B sound that had been a staple of her past works with "a little bit of everything", exploring a diverse set of other genres and soundscapes such as stripped-back, acoustic music that makes use of guitars.
During the build-up to the album's release, SZA compiled a list of possible collaborators and reached out to them through private messages. The roster ranged from Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, and Olivia Rodrigo; to Doja Cat, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar. Of the several artists she contacted for the album, only three people sent their verses: Don Toliver, Phoebe Bridgers, and Travis Scott. Toliver and Bridgers appear in the tracks "Used" and "Ghost in the Machine" respectively, while Scott appears in "Low" as a background vocalist and "Open Arms" as a featured artist.
SZA and Scott had collaborated three times beforehand. The two worked on Scott's song "Ok Alright" from Rodeo (2015), SZA's single "Love Galore" from Ctrl (2017), and the song "Power Is Power" from the Game of Thrones soundtrack (2019). Of the two Scott collaborations, "Open Arms" was written first; "Low" was the last song on the album to be written.


The media had the tendency to categorize SZA as an R&B artist. She refused to be restricted to such a label, and she felt the narrative had developed because she was a Black woman. Countering what she believed was racial bias, she said: "I love making Black music, period. Something that is just full of energy. Black music doesn't have to just be R&B [...] Why can't we just be expansive and not reductive?" The album's acoustic, stripped-back sound manifests in tracks such as "Open Arms".
"Open Arms" is among the album's songs that have an acoustic sound, backed by a finger-picked guitar that puts emphasis on SZA's soft vocal performance. In a departure from his usual sharp, energetic trap sound, Scott performs with a gentle rap cadence; he uses his lower register, with his vocals digitally manipulated using Auto-Tune. Also appearing on the song is SZA's grandmother, Norma Rowe, in the form of a voice recording. Rowe was SZA's grandmother who died from Alzheimer's disease during recording sessions for SOS, which caused her to go through frequent depressive episodes, and like Scott, Rowe's vocals prominently featured in Ctrl. Nylon wrote that she helped provide "Open Arms" a heartwarming tone to contrast much of the album's other tracks which are "roiling at the brim with anger, sadness, insecurity, and loneliness".
Producer Carter Lang cited time pressure as the driving force behind the creation of many songs on SOS. Work on the album began in 2019, but much of "Open Arms" was written and recorded around the tailend of 2021, with 2022 the year they started being at their most productive. The choice to have Scott depart from the more uptempo, trap sound of "Love Galore" was an idea from fellow SOS producer Rob Bisel, who wanted him to do something unexpected for the album: "it just seems like there's no need to repeat the same play from that playbook, like what's something you wouldn't expect from Travis?" Upon hearing the suggestion, SZA sent Scott the beat and received his verse one or two weeks later, during the final stages of the album recording process.
Apart from Halm and Bisel, who is also the song's mixer and engineer, the list of producers includes Michael Uzowuru. The three, SZA, and Scott are credited as songwriters alongside one Douglas Ford. Engineering took place at Ponzu Studios and Westlake Studio A in Los Angeles, and the mixing and mastering were done a day before the album was turned in. Bisel and Scott's mixer, Derek "206derek" Anderson, mixed "Open Arms" at Ponzu, and Dale Becker mastered it at his studio in Pasadena, California.


Many SOS tracks explore the conflict between SZA's desire for a new life on her own and a longing for a fulfilling romantic connection, to the detriment of her self-image. "Open Arms" is one song that features such a conflict, depicting the narrator's continued attachment to a relationship even though it has become unhealthy for her. In the lyrics, she admits she is willing to still be with her ex-boyfriend no matter how much they are actually incompatible and no matter how much it takes a toll on her mental health, to the point where she sings in one line, "Who needs self-esteem, anyway?" She hopes that staying with her ex-boyfriend will sate her desire of finally being appreciated by someone, admitting: "I hate myself to make you stay / Push me away, I'll be right here." According to music journalist Danyel Smith, the line mirrors SZA's personal life in that it recalls her history with rejection from people with whom she wanted to form close friendships.
Scott appears in the third verse as her romantic foil. He calls her his "ride-or-die" and his "favourite color", reassuring her that he will treat her as best as he can "no matter what comes between" them. A solo version of "Open Arms" replaces Scott with SZA's take on the third verse. In it, her character sings about a time she cried for one whole night, forlorn about her past relationships. Instead of feeling alone, she says, she would rather have sex with her ex-boyfriend again, because she believes he still loves her for who she is. Throughout the original version, the two try to welcome each other back into their life, reluctant to leave the relationship. By the end, however, SZA's character realizes that she must, in the words of XXL, "accept isolation with open arms" so that no person will break her heart again.


During a Billboard cover story published in November 2022, SZA revealed the album title, as well as the release date which was scheduled sometime next month. She posted the album's track list on Twitter on December 5, and SOS was released four days later. "Open Arms" appears as the 20th out of 23 tracks. The song had its live performance debut during the SOS Tour, an international tour in support of the album.


Upon the album's release, "Open Arms" charted in Canada, the United States, and Australia. The song peaked in those countries at numbers 51, 54, and 81, respectively. It peaked at number 24 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and number 67 on the Billboard Global 200, In 2024, the song was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling over 1,000,000 units.
That same year, "Open Arms" began entering more national charts, as it experienced a resurgence in consumption. It entered the New Zealand chart in 2024, peaking at number 29 there. In 2025, it peaked at number 91 in Ireland, 63 in the UK, and 37 in the Philippines.


Much of critical commentary around "Open Arms" focused on Scott's guest feature. Some critics considered him a fitting addition on the song, welcoming his uncharacteristically gentle tone on the third verse and praising him and SZA for expanding into a more gentle, acoustic sound. As Kitty Empire wrote for The Observer, "Versatility largely wins out [on SOS]. Only SZA could find room for Travis Scott on a slow jam ballad". Variety's A. D. Amorosi and the Los Angeles Times's Mikael Wood found the composition of "grand and gorgeous" quality; Amorosi in particular deemed Scott the song's centerpiece. Other praise was directed towards his chemistry with SZA in comparison to "Love Galore" and Rowe's voice as (in tandem with Scott's feature) a "nice nod" to Ctrl. Meanwhile, writing for Time, Andrew Chow and Moises Mendez II thought Scott's contributions were tolerable at best, and Mendez was more impressed with his background vocals for "Low".


A digital download–only version of "Open Arms" without Scott's verse was released on an extended edition of SOS, on January 5, 2023. The edition was website-exclusive, available for purchase only on Top Dawg Entertainment's website. The release occurred following a close competition for the Billboard 200 number-one spot between SOS and Taylor Swift's Midnights (2022). The extended edition was released to boost SOS's performance on the chart, a strategy Swift also did with her album.
On February 7, 2025, SZA's official website was surreptitiously updated with an announcement. It stated that an extended version of Lana–the reissue album of SOS–would be released two days later, following multiple delays. The solo version's inclusion had been teased on social media last December 2024, via screenshots of SZA's text conversations with her manager Punch. It was officially released to streaming platforms on the scheduled date, under the subtitle "Just SZA", hours before her Super Bowl LIX halftime show performance.


Adapted from the liner notes of SOS
Recording and management


Engineered at Ponzu Studios and Westlake Studio A (Los Angeles, California)
Mixed at Ponzu
Mastered at Becker Mastering (Pasadena, California)
Personnel


The Overlook (Autumn/Winter 1999) was the fourteenth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his eponymous fashion house. It was inspired by the Stanley Kubrick horror film The Shining (1980) and named for the fictional Overlook Hotel where much of the film takes place. The collection focused on winter clothing in light and neutral colours, including chunky knitwear, fur and shearling coats, and parkas inspired by Inuit clothing. Showpiece items included a bustier made from rock crystal and a corset made from coils of aluminium, the latter provided by jeweller and frequent McQueen collaborator Shaun Leane.
The runway show was staged on 23 February 1999 at Gatliff Road Warehouse in London. Several celebrities attended, including Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who was making her first appearance at a McQueen show. The square stage was enclosed by a large Lucite box. The inside, lit by thousands of candles, was dressed to look like a birch forest in winter, complete with artificial snow and an icy floor. Production was handled by McQueen's usual creative team. Seventy-three looks were presented in the main runway show, interrupted by a brief entr'acte during which several models skated around the enclosure. The show earned a standing ovation, regarded as a rare achievement in the fashion world.
Critical response to the clothing and the runway show for The Overlook was mostly positive, and it is regarded as one of McQueen's most memorable shows. Some observers criticised the collection for being unrealistic, and others objected to the use of real fur. Academic analysis has focused on the show's interpretation of The Shining and themes of isolation through the medium of clothing. The coiled corset was the sole item from The Overlook to appear in the original 2011 staging of the retrospective exhibit Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.


British designer Alexander McQueen was known in the fashion industry for his imaginative, sometimes controversial designs. During his nearly twenty-year career, he explored a broad range of ideas and themes, including historicism, romanticism, femininity, sexuality, and death. His fashion shows were theatrical to the point of verging on performance art. He began his career in fashion as an apprentice on Savile Row, and the skills he developed there earned him a lifelong reputation as an expert tailor. Early in his career, his runway presentations were violent and shocking, and audiences began to expect his shows to feature macabre dramatics. From 1996 to 2001, he was head designer at French luxury design house Givenchy, where he learned le flou, or draping, the dressmaking side of haute couture.
McQueen's personal fixations had a strong influence on his designs and shows, especially his love of film, which he drew on from the beginning of his career with his first commercial collection, Taxi Driver (Autumn/Winter 1993), named for the 1976 Martin Scorsese film. Other explicitly film-inspired collections include The Birds (Spring/Summer 1995), The Hunger (Spring/Summer 1996), Deliverance (Spring/Summer 2004), and The Man Who Knew Too Much (Autumn/Winter 2005).
McQueen often worked with other creatives to produce things outside his area of expertise for runway shows, such as hats or jewellery. He had a light touch with collaborators, providing short creative briefs that permitted latitude for interpretation, and often did not see the work he had commissioned until right before the show. McQueen had a longstanding and particularly close collaboration with jeweller Shaun Leane, who had worked with him as early as Highland Rape (Autumn/Winter 1995). The two met during their student years; Leane was trained as a classical goldsmith who worked in traditional formats, but McQueen encouraged him to branch out into other materials and shapes.


The Overlook (Autumn/Winter 1999) was the fourteenth collection by McQueen for his eponymous fashion house. It was inspired by the Stanley Kubrick horror film The Shining (1980) and named after the fictional Overlook Hotel where much of the film takes place. McQueen stated that the collection was intended to echo the film's "sense of isolation and obscurity". Separately, he said that he "wanted to confront misconceptions of size and matter" with the collection. Journalist Suzy Menkes suggested the emphasis on knitwork and embroidery may have been drawn from the Arts and Crafts movement, which had strongly influenced McQueen's previous collection, No. 13 (Spring/Summer 1999).
Although The Shining is known for its dark and violent subject matter, McQueen surprised the audience by instead taking inspiration from its wintery, isolated setting, while making several visual references to the film. He referenced the film's ghostly sisters in Look 40, which featured a pair of identically styled models walking hand in hand. Hexagonal shapes reflected the Overlook Hotel's carpet pattern. The show concluded with an artificial snowstorm reminiscent of the blizzard that ends the film.
The palette was primarily light and neutral colours: black, white, grey, and soft pink. The collection focused on romantic interpretations of winter clothing and pseudo-skiwear: garments made from thick jersey, chunky knitted items, and parkas inspired by Inuit clothing. McQueen incorporated materials sourced from animals, including crocodile skin, leather, rabbit fur, and shearling. As was typical with McQueen, there was a heavy emphasis on tailored garments, especially frock coats and fit and flare dresses. One frock coat had a fanned tail, referencing McQueen's love of birds and asymmetrical designs. Skirts were pleated or bubbled, making them voluminous. McQueen's signature low-rise "bumster" trousers also made an appearance. Other repeated design elements included patchwork garments, painted and embroidered roses, Swarovski crystal decorations, and garments made from metal. The boots worn by the models had heels resembling ice skate blades.


The runway show was staged on 23 February 1999 at Gatliff Road Warehouse in London. It was dedicated to Stanley Kubrick, then recently deceased. The show's invitation was a sheet of white A4 paper with the proverb "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" typed repeatedly, echoing the way Shining protagonist Jack Torrance obsessively types the phrase while losing his mind. There were technical issues backstage, including a small fire and a malfunctioning artificial snow machine, although these were resolved without interrupting the show. Several celebrities attended, including Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Cate Blanchett, Grace Jones, and members of trip hop group Massive Attack. Industry figures in attendance included Nicole Fischelis, fashion director of the department store Saks Fifth Avenue, and Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who was making her first appearance at a McQueen show. McQueen's mother Joyce was also in the audience.
McQueen typically worked with a consistent creative team for his shows. Katy England was responsible for overall styling, while Gainsbury & Whiting oversaw production. Joseph Bennett, who had designed all of McQueen's runways since No. 13 (Spring/Summer 1999), took care of set design. Nicolas Jurnjack styled hair, while Val Garland, a frequent McQueen collaborator, handled makeup. Jeweller Shaun Leane produced jewellery and metalwork, and product designer Kees van der Graaf returned to create a bodice made from rock crystal.
The soundtrack mostly relied on orchestral music from The Shining, including the 1934 version of "Midnight, The Stars and You" with Al Bowlly and Ray Noble and his Orchestra. The sound of wolves howling and wind blowing was added to the mix. Because the vinyl release of the film's soundtrack was difficult to find at the time, sound designer John Gosling had to pull the music from VHS tapes. McQueen took his bow to the Frank Sinatra song "Come Fly with Me".


The square stage was enclosed by a 20-foot (6 m) Lucite box; it was the first of two collections which McQueen staged this way. The inside, lit by thousands of candles, was dressed to look like a birch forest in winter, with 25 tons of artificial snow and an icy floor. In a 2018 interview with Vogue, model Frankie Rayder recalled McQueen surprising her with the ice during a pre-show conversation:"I was walking with Lee before the show," remembers Rayder, "and he's like, 'So you're going to open the show and you are walking on this.' I said, 'On ice? Are you joking? Are there spikes on the bottom of these shoes?!' His response: 'No. You're from Wisconsin.'"
Models were styled with braided grey hair and silver paint over their eyes, eyelashes, eyebrows, and lower foreheads, resembling masks or stripes of ice. Fashion theorist Janice Miller felt that the connotations of transformation and concealment associated with masks made the makeup "strange, beautiful, and wistful". Curator Kate Bethune considered the faintly Native American look of the models' braided hair and exaggerated face makeup to be a reference to the cursed Native American burial ground on which the film's Overlook Hotel was built.
Seventy-three looks were presented in the main runway show. The show opened with roughly a dozen outfits in black, including a sleeveless high-necked bodice of crocodile skin paired with a leather skirt. These looks were followed by a phase of garments in soft brown, taupe, and pink. A section of looks in grey followed, including several showpiece items. Look 38 was a metallic sculpted bodice trimmed with fur. Look 40 featured a pair of models, styled identically with red hair, shaved eyebrows, and grey dresses walking hand in hand. The others were Shaun Leane's work: a metal corset made from coils of aluminium (Look 47) and a knee-length aluminium skirt with laser-cut arabesques (Look 50).
After Look 53, the lights went down, and there was a three-minute entr'acte in which a group of seven models led by professional skater Marika Humphreys skated around the stage. When the skating ended, the music cut out. The lights came back up, flickering, accompanied by an artificial snowstorm and the sound of howling wolves. The show resumed with Look 54, a bodice made of rock crystal worn with McQueen's signature low-rise "bumster" trousers in white, followed by another eleven looks all in white. The show earned a standing ovation, regarded as a rare achievement in the fashion world.


The rock crystal bustier and the coiled corset – which McQueen called the "Cossack ensemble" – are the most significant pieces from the show. Both were made using body casts of model Laura Morgan which had been produced for No. 13 by van der Graaf. McQueen was known for giving extremely simple creative briefs and allowing his collaborators the freedom to interpret them creatively. Van der Graaf recalled his brief for the bodice from Look 54 as being little more than McQueen asking him "how 'bout a crystal bodice?". He thought of rough quartz rock crystals, only later learning that McQueen had had Swarovski crystals in mind. He told interviewer Lousie Rytter that McQueen's "brevity gave me room to manoeuvre".
Leane built the aluminium corset over the course of six weeks, working 16-hour days. McQueen had requested that he interpret the neck rings traditionally worn by the Southern Ndebele people into an item that covered the entire torso. Leane had previously made a coiled neck ring with a similar brief for McQueen's Autumn/Winter 1997 collection It's a Jungle Out There. The coiled corset was the largest thing Leane, a goldsmith who normally worked at a much smaller scale, had made up to that point. Each of the more than 90 aluminium coils that went into the corset were individually forged and fitted to the body cast for a precise shape.
The corset was made in two halves which screwed together at the sides. Putting it on or removing it could take up to 15 minutes. The fit was so exact that Morgan, who wore the finished version on the runway, said her "chest pushed against the metal when she breathed in". The restrictive corset limited the wearer's ability to move her head and arms. Morgan recalled the experience as empowering: "it's almost like it forces you to pay attention, forces you to be present, and be there, and be what you are. It's very commanding." Leane recalled that in the excitement after the show, he and McQueen headed to the pub to celebrate and forgot to remove Morgan from the corset until someone came to find them.
Curator Clare Phillips described the coiled corset as an example of primitivism in McQueen's work, given its origins in African neck jewellery. She felt it "exudes invulnerability and an untouchable remoteness" while blurring the line between jewellery and clothing. Fashion theorist Harold Koda argued that the restrictiveness of the corset was reminiscent of "the stiff hieratic imagery in Russian Orthodox icons".


Contemporary reception for The Overlook was mostly positive, many critics responding equally well to the runway show and the clothing. Several highlighted the collection as the best or most impressive of London Fashion Week that year. Others predicted that it would be remembered as some of McQueen's best work. Anna Wintour, although reputedly difficult to please, said she "adored it" and called it a "tour de force for McQueen". Susannah Frankel of The Independent called The Overlook McQueen's "most unashamedly pretty collection to date". Anne-Marie Schiro wrote in The New York Times that the runway show and clothing together had been worth travelling to London for. In the International Herald Tribune, Suzy Menkes felt the show had everything: "a spectacular presentation, an original interpretation and inventive clothes". In The Sydney Morning Herald, Jane De Teliga wrote that the "show had a strange, edgy beauty" and called McQueen the "leading light of British fashion". Spencer felt the show would impress even the celebrities in the audience, highlighting the tailored designs in particular.
Reviews noted that the collection was both artistic and commercially viable. This was a positive development for McQueen, whose designs were notorious for being creative but unwearable. Robert O'Byrne of The Irish Times wrote that the "superlative tailoring and cutting of unrivalled mastery" of the designs would appeal to consumers. Mimi Spencer of the Evening Standard thought the puffer jackets would be a popular item for the winter. Some reviewers felt that the skills McQueen was learning at Givenchy had influenced the designs for the better. Menkes argued that McQueen's time there had enabled him to match his signature styles to the winter theme. Armstrong found the clothing "had a light, assured touch and elegance" that surpassed what McQueen was doing in his collections for Givenchy.
The theatrical runway show drew a great deal of critical commentary in its own right. Several critics appreciated how McQueen subverted the audience's expectations by avoiding explicit horror and instead drawing inspiration from the film's unsettling atmosphere. John Davidson at The Herald of Glasgow found the lack of shock elements to be evidence of McQueen's growing maturity. He wrote that McQueen's designs gave the skating portion a "poetic quality", elevating it from kitsch. The staff writer at Women's Wear Daily (WWD) said the collection "combined his new romantic mood with those trademark touches of the bizarre". Lisa Armstrong, writing for The Times of London, described the paired models from Look 40 as one of the "few freakish McQueen moments" from a show whose mood was otherwise romantic. The WWD staff and Armstrong felt that McQueen had achieved the difficult feat of topping his critically acclaimed previous collection, No. 13. O'Byrne called it McQueen's "best show in years".
The Overlook attracted some criticism for being unrealistic and using fur. Lou Winwood of The Guardian, Karen Hall at the Windsor Star, and Jane Moore at The Sun dismissed all of the collections shown at London Fashion Week that season as being unrealistic and unappealing for everyday consumers, although Winwood did appreciate the runway show. Although O'Byrne's review was positive, he worried that McQueen's penchant for showmanship threatened to overshadow his talent for design. Some critics disliked the showpiece items. Lesley Downer found them "oddities" in an otherwise mature collection, and Hall complained that the coiled corset made its wearer look like she had been "been bound and gagged by Slinkies". Other reviewers disapproved of the use of real fur. Winwood wrote that "animals rights campaigners will be less than impressed" with the rabbit fur and crocodile skin. An unbylined piece in the Scottish Daily Record complained that McQueen was only using fur to chase publicity, and doubted that it had much appeal for the average British consumer.
The show is viewed positively in retrospect. In the biography Alexander McQueen: The Life and the Legacy, Judith Watt regarded it as a commercially oriented collection, as McQueen was about to open a brand-new flagship store. She wrote that "some pronounced it his best show" but disagreed; although she found The Overlook aesthetically and narratively successful, she considered Voss (Spring/Summer 2001) – also staged in a clear plastic box – to be "the real magic". Chloe Fox, in her book Vogue on McQueen, called The Overlook evidence that McQueen was "a designer who was increasingly becoming an artist". Journalist Maureen Callahan wrote that it was "some of the most striking work of his career". Andrew Wilson, another of McQueen's biographers, called The Overlook one of McQueen's "most memorable" shows, along with Voss and No. 13.


Curator Claire Wilcox found that the separation created by the Lucite enclosure called to mind the "otherworldly reality of a dream". Fashion journalist Alex Fury argued that McQueen often staged spectacles that separated the audience from the models in a way that evoked screen-based media such as cinema, offering The Overlook and Voss as examples. Literature professor Catherine Spooner cited The Overlook as an example of how McQueen drew Gothic influence from films.
Fashion historian Alistair O'Neill discussed how The Overlook reflects The Shining in multiple ways. As well as its explicit references to The Shining, The Overlook reflected the film through music and performance elements which evoked the way the film distorted time by presenting scenes that "destabiliz[ed] any sense of how long Jack [Torrance] really has been staying at the hotel". In The Overlook, McQueen's use of the film's soundtrack served to "decelerate and extend" the experience of time within the runway show. The skating segment interrupted the usual sequence of a fashion show. It used the same song, "Midnight, the Stars, and You", that played during a time-distortion sequence in the film, connecting the two thematically. Finally, O'Neill identifies Look 43 – a plaid wool dress – as referential to McQueen's prior collection Highland Rape (Autumn/Winter 1995) and his experience as an apprentice tailor. This, he suggests, blends history with the present in a similar way to the film, slightly distorted like a composite photo. He felt the collection "marked a high point" for fashion and for interpreting film through other media.
Researcher Lisa Skogh noted that McQueen often incorporated concepts and objects which might have appeared in a cabinet of curiosities – collections of natural and historical objects that were the precursor to modern museums. She identified the quartz crystal bodice in Look 54 as an example of what would be called "artificialia" in such a context: a man-made object which incorporated "a natural hardstone rarity". She likened the bodice to an artificial mountain commissioned in the early 17th century by diplomat Philipp Hainhofer as a gift to King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.
Fashion historian Ingrid Loschek regarded The Overlook as an example of how McQueen portrayed "traumata such as isolation and loneliness" through the medium of clothing. Fashion theorists Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas compared The Overlook to What a Merry-Go-Round (Autumn/Winter 2001) as narratives of the "loss of childhood innocence". Aesthetically, they found The Overlook reminded them of the White Witch, a villain from the Chronicles of Narnia series of children's books. Cultural theologian Robert Covolo described McQueen's use of twin models in The Overlook as evidence of McQueen's career-long ambivalence toward conventional standards of beauty.


Before the show, McQueen had announced that his next collection, Eye (Spring/Summer 2000), would be presented at New York Fashion Week instead of in London. Many fashion journalists were concerned about the potential impact that his departure would have on London Fashion Week. McQueen viewed this as a step toward developing the brand internationally and was clear from the outset that he intended to return to England the following season.
The collection is regarded as one of McQueen's most memorable. In 2015, Dazed magazine selected the silver eye makeup from The Overlook as one of McQueen's best catwalk makeup looks. i-D magazine named it an iconic winter collection in 2017. Shaun Leane published a retrospective of his career in 2020; discussing it with British Vogue, he selected an image of the model being screwed into the coiled corset as his favourite in the book. He reflected on the contrast captured in the image: "she is almost angelic but being prepared for battle". A 2022 British Vogue article called The Overlook one of McQueen's "most fantastical catwalk moments".
When McQueen and Leane participated in the Fashion in Motion series at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in 2001, they presented the coiled corset as one of their featured items. The coiled corset was the sole item from The Overlook to appear in the original 2011 staging of the retrospective exhibit Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, courtesy of Shaun Leane; it also appeared at the revised 2015 staging at the V&A. Leane called it his favourite item from the exhibition. A puffer jacket from Look 10 appeared in the 2022 exhibit Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse, where curators compared it to a quilted, puffy eiderdown jacket made by British designer Charles James in 1937.
In 2017, Leane auctioned a number of pieces he had created for the house at Sotheby's in New York. The coiled corset sold for $807,000. An invitation to the show sold at RR Auction in 2021 for a reported $500.


The oyster dress is a high fashion gown created by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his Spring/Summer 2003 collection Irere. McQueen's design is a one-shouldered dress in bias-cut beige silk chiffon with a boned upper body and a full-length skirt consisting of hundreds of individual circles of organza sewn in dense layers to the base fabric, resembling the outside of an oyster shell. According to McQueen, the gown took a month's work for three people, who cut and assembled all the pieces individually. In addition to the original beige dress, a version with a red bodice and the ruffled skirt in rainbow colours was also created. The beige and red versions appeared in the Irere runway show, and were photographed for magazines to promote the collection.
The dress originated as a reinterpretation of the "shellfish dress" designed by John Galliano in 1987, which McQueen had long admired and sought to emulate. Contemporary critical response to McQueen's oyster dress was positive. It has become known as the most significant design from Irere, and is considered an iconic piece of McQueen's work, surpassing the famed Galliano original. Only two copies are known to exist, one held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York City and one by media personality Kim Kardashian. The Met's copy has appeared in several exhibitions, particularly the retrospective Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. McQueen returned to the oyster dress concept several times over his career, most prominently in his Autumn/Winter 2006 collection The Widows of Culloden.


British designer Alexander McQueen was known in the fashion industry for his imaginative, sometimes controversial designs. Although he worked in ready-to-wear – clothing produced for retail sale – his showpiece designs featured a degree of craftsmanship that verged on haute couture. Before launching his own label, McQueen apprenticed as a tailor on Savile Row, and he became known for a focus on tailored designs. From 1996 to 2001, he was head designer at French luxury design house Givenchy, where he learned le flou, or draping, the dressmaking side of haute couture.
McQueen's career roughly paralleled that of fellow British designer John Galliano, who preceded him in the industry by about a decade. The men had each graduated from Central Saint Martins art school in London: Galliano in 1984, and McQueen in 1992. Both had started their careers as independent designers before being hired by famous French fashion houses in the mid-1990s; McQueen had replaced Galliano at Givenchy when Galliano went to Dior. Their designs and shows were similarly creative and theatrical. During the period in which their careers overlapped, fashion journalists compared and contrasted their work and career choices, and they have sometimes been referred to as rivals. McQueen, who had a competitive streak, resented being compared to Galliano and often sought to emulate or outdo Galliano's ideas in his own work.
For his Spring/Summer 2003 collection, Irere, McQueen took inspiration from the Age of Discovery and the Amazon rainforest. He presented three sequential phases of ensembles: shipwrecked pirates, black-clad conquistadors, and colourful dresses inspired by tropical birds. McQueen described the collection as an effort to present a more mature point of view and surprise viewers with bold colours. Contemporary reception for Irere was positive, with many in the industry calling it one of the best collections for that season.


The "oyster dress" is a reinterpretation of a 1987 design by John Galliano called the "shellfish dress". Galliano's shellfish dress was named for its layers of "pearl grey" organza ruffles that resembled stacked clamshells, a technically complex design that was actually executed by costumier Karen Crichton. McQueen had long admired and sought to emulate the complicated construction of the original. According to his friend Sebastian Pons, McQueen owned numerous "copies and photographs" of Galliano's dress and would study them intently, trying to work out how it was constructed.
McQueen's design is a one-shouldered dress in bias-cut beige silk chiffon with a boned upper body and a full-length skirt. Hundreds of individual circles of organza were sewn to the base fabric in dense layers, resembling an oyster shell or a mille-feuille pastry. An estimated 180–260 metres (200–285 yd) of fabric was required. According to McQueen, the gown took a month's work for three people to cut and assemble all the pieces. The cost was reportedly £45,000. In addition to the original beige dress, a version with a red bodice and the ruffled skirt in rainbow colours was also created.
The original beige gown appeared in the first, pirate-themed phase of the Irere runway show as Look 18, worn by Letícia Birkheuer. The version with the rainbow skirt appeared in the final phase as Look 49, worn on the runway by Michelle Alves. Both versions appeared in magazines to promote the collection. Natalia Vodianova wore the oyster dress for two photo shoots: Vogue in January 2003, photographed by Craig McDean, and Harper's Bazaar in March 2003, photographed by Peter Lindbergh. Socialite Daphne Guinness, a longtime friend of McQueen's, wore it for a 2003 photo shoot. The rainbow oyster dress appeared on the cover of Vogue Italia for their Spring/Summer 2003 issue. Joy Bryant wore it for a photo shoot for InStyle magazine in March 2003, calling it the "Rainbow Cancan" dress.


The oyster dress is considered an iconic McQueen design; according to Pons and journalist Dana Thomas, it surpassed the famed Galliano original. In a contemporary review, Jess Cartner-Morley wrote that the dress exemplified the show's maritime theme, with chiffon layers that were "as soft and close as ripples on sand". Curator Kate Bethune wrote that it portrayed a sense of "[f]ragile femininity". Thomas called it "far more beautiful and elegant than the original" shellfish dress. Fashion curator Andrew Bolton labelled it "arguably the most important dress of the 21st century", and evidence that McQueen had expanded his skillset from his early focus on tailored designs and had mastered draping. Philosopher Gwenda-lin Grewal compared the destroyed look of the dress to the clothing of 19th-century dandies and 20th-century punks, both of which adopted torn clothing for aesthetic reasons. Author Ana Finel Honigman found that the lightness of the frills contrasted with the deconstructed appearance to create a "tension between gravity and transcendence".
McQueen returned to the oyster dress concept several times. Actress Liv Tyler wore a variation of the oyster gown to the Paris premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in December 2002. Her version had a corset bodice and a pink skirt made from 250 metres (273 yd) of silk organza. McQueen designed a wedding dress based on the oyster dress for the August 2004 wedding of his assistant Sarah Burton. Authors Judith Watt and Dana Thomas both described several dresses from The Widows of Culloden (Autumn/Winter 2006) as evolutions of the oyster dress, including the dress worn in the illusion of Kate Moss that served as the show's finale.
Sarah Burton, who replaced McQueen as the creative director for the Alexander McQueen brand, used the oyster dress technique for Pre-Spring/Summer 2021. Her version was in pink, with a transition to black on the neckline and the bottom of the skirt. The organza fabric was recycled from stock.


Following the show, McQueen estimated that 20 orders had been placed for copies of the oyster dress. However, only two copies of the beige original are known to exist. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York City acquired one in 2003, and it has appeared in the exhibitions Goddess: The Classical Mode (2003) and Blog Mode: Addressing Fashion (2008). The Met's copy of the oyster dress appeared with other clothing from Irere in both stagings of the retrospective exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.
Media personality Kim Kardashian owns the other known oyster dress, purchased from Los Angeles vintage boutique Lily et Cie. Its original owner was socialite Angie Barrett, who wore it to the Cannes Film Festival and Beaux-Arts Ball in 2003. In 2020, Kardashian wore the oyster dress to an Oscars afterparty hosted by Vanity Fair. Critics have noted Kardashian's use of the oyster dress as part of a trend for celebrities choosing to wear archival items as red carpet wear. In 2022, Rachel Tashjian called this use of vintage fashion "basically the ultimate fashion flex right now". Fashion theorist Naomi Braithwaite argued that in acquiring archival fashion items, such as the oyster dress, Kardashian was attempting to integrate the cultural history of those objects into her own celebrity narrative, thereby increasing her own cultural significance by association.


Pantheon ad Lucem (Autumn/Winter 2004) is the twenty-fourth collection by British designer Alexander McQueen for his eponymous fashion house. Inspired by ideas of rebirth, ancient Greek garments and science fiction films including 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars (1977), the collection focused on sleek draped, wrapped, or tied jersey designs in light and neutral colours, with some evening wear in darker colours. Contrasting the slimline items were heavier garments including tweed suits and fur coats. McQueen expressed his fascination with altering the silhouette, emphasising the hips to a degree that was uncommon for him.
The runway show was staged on 5 March 2004 at the Grande halle de la Villette in Paris. In contrast to McQueen's usually bombastic presentations, the show for Pantheon ad Lucem was minimalist. Models were styled to look androgynous and somewhat alien. They wore wigs with short, tightly curled hair, echoing hairstyles found on ancient Greek statuary. The runway was a plain white circle, illuminated from below. Lighting abstractly evoked the Roman Colosseum or an alien starship. For the show's finale, model Tiiu Kuik wore a grey evening gown with an exaggerated hourglass silhouette, styled with a shoulder-piece decorated with silver orchids, and walked to the spotlit centre of the stage to the sound of a flatlining heart monitor.
Critical response to the clothing and the runway show for Pantheon ad Lucem was mixed to positive, and it is regarded as one of McQueen's less significant collections. Some critics appreciated the simple artistry of the clothing, but many had come to expect theatre from McQueen and were disappointed by its absence. The "Orchid" shoulder-piece appeared in the original 2011 staging of the retrospective exhibit Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, and a dress from the retail collection appeared at the exhibition Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse (2022).


British fashion designer Alexander McQueen was known for his imaginative, sometimes controversial designs, and dramatic fashion shows which were theatrical to the point of verging on performance art. During his nearly twenty-year career, he explored a broad range of ideas and themes, including historicism, romanticism, femininity, sexuality, and death.
McQueen's personal fixations had a strong influence on his designs and shows. He drew on his love of film from the beginning of his career with his first commercial collection, Taxi Driver (Autumn/Winter 1993), named for the 1976 film by Martin Scorsese. He also had a lifelong fascination with space travel and aliens. Referring to the time- and space-travelling device from the science fiction show Doctor Who, he said: "If the TARDIS did exist, I'd be the first to buy one." His collections were often historicist, referencing and reworking historical narratives and concepts.
From 1996 to October 2001, McQueen was – in addition to his responsibilities for his own fashion house – head designer at French fashion house Givenchy. In 2000, McQueen sold 51 per cent of his company to the Gucci Group, owned by French conglomerate PPR (now Kering), but retained creative control. During late 2003 and early 2004, McQueen was in tense negotiations with PPR management to replace the departing Tom Ford as creative director at Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), also owned by PPR. The negotiations broke down and McQueen did not take the job, publicly stating he wished to focus on his own label.


Pantheon ad Lucem (Autumn/Winter 2004) is the twenty-fourth collection McQueen designed for his eponymous fashion house. The entire title is often incorrectly translated as meaning "towards the light"; this is the correct translation for the Latin phrase "ad lucem", but neglects to account for the word "pantheon".
McQueen saw Pantheon ad Lucem as a rebirth and renewal. His goal for the collection was to remove "all theatrics and focus purely on design", in contrast to his usually bombastic runway presentations. He also said that he "wanted to envision what fashion should be like in the 21st century". The collection took inspiration from the loosely draped style of ancient Greek garments as well as the costume and design of science fiction films like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Star Wars (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and Signs (2002).
The palette was mostly neutral and the cuts were relatively simple, making heavy use of silhouettes McQueen had relied on in the past, including dresses with cinched waists, tailored suits and coats, and draped gowns. Some journalists interpreted the collection's restrained designs as being related to the YSL negotiations, either as evidence of stress, or an attempt to assert his own identity as a designer. Much of the collection comprised ensembles in draped, wrapped, or tied jersey. Long column dresses evoked the 1930s work of French designer Madeleine Vionnet, who specialised in bias-cut dresses meant to loosely drape and wrap around the body; Vionnet was also inspired by the ancient Greeks. Journalist Stephen Todd thought these items might also have been influenced by Tunisian designer Azzedine Alaïa. Contrasting the slimline items were heavier garments including tweed suits and fur coats. Looks 26 and 27 had embossed patterns that evoked the appearance of crop circles or the Nazca Lines.
McQueen was known for playing with the silhouette by cutting or structuring garments to produce unusual shapes. In Pantheon, he emphasised the hips to a degree that was uncommon for him, but also showed cinched waists and padded jackets. The final items in the collection had highly structured boat necklines in an exaggerated width, coupled with reflective fabric or inset LED lights, giving the wearer an inhuman or alien quality. The conical silver dress in Look 51 bore a resemblance to the Apollo command module.
Despite its science fiction roots, Pantheon contained McQueen's typical references to historical clothing styles. The early phase of the collection included references to the 1930s fashion that influenced his previous collection, Deliverance (Spring/Summer 2004), including pussy bows, broadened shoulders, and slightly mismatched collars and hems. Looks 36 and 38, heavily beaded dresses with extreme cutouts, may have been referencing belly dancing outfits. McQueen referenced English medieval clothing in several of the evening wear pieces. Garments with heavily decorated yokes or long sleeves, such as those found in Looks 33 and 46 respectively, pointed back at the Plantagenet period of the Late Middle Ages. Look 47 had similarities to the English medieval kirtle. Look 54 echoed the gaping neckline in a design with elements of Tudor period clothing.
McQueen often incorporated materials and visuals from the natural world into his shows. Look 34 was styled with a large collar made from real feathers and glass beads, a possible nod to Native American styles. Jaguar print and floral print appeared in Looks 37 and 39, and 48 and 49, respectively. The exaggerated floral prints, an unusual motif for McQueen and one which he called "pivotal" to the collection's presentation, were derived from photographs of orchids by Peter Arnold. Reproducing the multicoloured photographs as prints on silk presented a technical challenge for McQueen's manufacturer and had to be redone several times. As a result, the collection was delayed and did not leave the production facility in Italy until nearly two days before the show.


The runway show was staged on 5 March 2004 at the Grande halle de la Villette in Paris. It was the final show of the day. Although scheduled for 8:30 p.m., it did not start until 10. PPR president Francois-Henri Pinault and chairman Serge Weinberg, as well as departing Gucci CEO Domenico De Sole were in attendance. Other guests included designer Diane von Furstenberg, McQueen's friends Isabella Blow and Kate Moss, musician Grace Jones, and McQueen's mother.
The runway was a plain white circle, illuminated from below; author Andrew Wilson described it as an "alien landing pad". Models entered through a backlit door at the rear of the stage, suggesting the open door of an alien spaceship. The rings of ceiling lights, as well as pillars of light circling the stage in the finale, evoked the Roman Colosseum in the abstract. Author Judith Watt saw the lights as representing "the base of a hovering starship". Joseph Bennett, who had designed all of McQueen's runways since No. 13 (Spring/Summer 1999), returned to handle set design.
The soundtrack was primarily electropop but incorporated tracks from science fiction films and television shows. The themes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Doctor Who appeared, as did a sample from the initial fanfare of the Richard Strauss composition Also sprach Zarathustra, used in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The 1980 Kate Bush song "Babooshka" was also used.


Guido Palau styled hair, while Val Garland handled make-up; both were frequent McQueen collaborators. Models were styled to look androgynous and somewhat alien, with their faces powdered pale and eyes slanted artificially with invisible tape. They wore wigs with short, tightly curled hair, echoing hairstyles found on ancient Greek statuary. Some critics found the styling "embryonic".
McQueen's longtime collaborator Shaun Leane created accessories for the collection, most notably the silver "Orchid" shoulder-piece that featured in the final look. According to Leane, McQueen requested a shoulder-piece with orchids made to look "quite alien [...] not from this planet". Leane had created a rose-adorned silver corset for McQueen's Spring/Summer 2000 Givenchy collection, and repeated the same process for the Orchid piece. He carved the shoulder section from clay and the flowers from wax. Both were cast in resin then electroplated with silver. The orchids were further oxidised so their colour contrasted with the shoulder portion.


Fifty-five pieces were presented. A brief projection before the show presented scenes from outer space. The opening phase consisted of flesh-toned items in soft fabrics like jersey and cashmere, as well as garments in soft leather and tweed. With Look 20, the presentation shifted to earth tones. This phase included McQueen's first jumpsuits, Looks 24 and 31, in tweed. More projected images of space preceded the final phase. Beginning at Look 40, the last portion of the collection comprised evening wear looks in dark satin, including the orchid-print dresses. The final three looks, all highly sculptural dresses, were presented in near-darkness, lit mainly by reflective fabric and LEDs inside the garments and jewellery.
For the show's finale, model Tiiu Kuik wore an evening gown in light grey tulle. The gown had an exaggerated hourglass silhouette: a flared A-line skirt, tightly cinched waist, and a V-shaped structured bodice that opened into a wide boat neckline. The look was styled with Shaun Leane's silver "Orchid" shoulder-piece. Kuik walked onto the darkened stage as concentric rings of light flashed on the floor and the sound of a heart monitor began playing. She stopped in the centre and held her arms out beseechingly while a spotlight illuminated her from the ceiling. The heart monitor sound gradually slowed into a flatline. Lights resembling pillars surrounded the stage. The spotlight gradually dimmed until Kuik was in darkness.
The lights came back up and the show's models came out to take their final turn. McQueen came out to take his bow in a white suit, barefoot. He shook hands and embraced De Sole, who had brought McQueen's label into the Gucci Group and supported his work. McQueen later described his barefoot appearance as an indication of "how humbled I felt by what was happening".


Contemporary critical response to Pantheon ad Lucem was mixed; reviewers were divided about the subdued clothing and runway show. Some felt the clothing looked fresh and modern. For The New York Times, Cathy Horyn wrote that only McQueen and Miuccia Prada had made a "leap of faith" that season and created designs that looked ahead, rather than following contemporary trends. Michael Fink, a market director for Saks Fifth Avenue, told Women's Wear Daily (WWD) that he interpreted McQueen's "sci-fi fantasy" designs as part of a trend for designers to "search for what's modern". For The Independent, Susannah Frankel felt McQueen "rose to the challenge beautifully", calling the final dresses a "futuristic fashion moment".
Some critics described the collection's restraint as a response to an industry in which many designers had become reliant on complicated designs and runway shenanigans. The staff reviewer from WWD noted that the "eerie austerity" was an inverted manifestation of McQueen's "characteristic lavishness". Sarah Mower of Vogue and Jess Cartner-Morley at The Guardian both felt the pared-down designs were a smart move, positioning McQueen as uniquely forward-looking compared to his peers. In contrast, Booth Moore for the Los Angeles Times felt that designers in general were moving towards producing "salable clothes" rather than "runway antics".
Many reviewers highlighted the technical excellence of the designs as the collection's best feature. Cartner-Morley wrote one of the few strongly positive reviews, saying the "bare-bones production revealed how well McQueen's clothes, with their impeccable shape and finish, stand up to scrutiny". Horyn directed viewers to ignore the science fiction elements and focus on the cut and the silhouette of the garments, which she found unique. WWD wrote that the designs showcased McQueen's technical competence and ability "to make ultra-complicated shapes utterly wearable". The draped evening gowns were also a hit for many. Frankel highlighted the clingy jersey and leather garments as the collection's best, and noted the use of "complex seams" to allow tweed items to be similarly figure-hugging. In her review for the International Herald Tribune, Suzy Menkes found the draped gowns "connected beautifully with the body". Moore called the evening wear "exciting" and suitable for red carpet wear.
Reviewers felt McQueen's reliance on familiar silhouettes was intended to highlight his strong suits as a designer. Mower suggested that McQueen "seemed to be trying to summarize the essence of his design identity" with these items. Vanessa Friedman of the Financial Times connected the collection's self-referential styling to McQueen turning down the head designer position at YSL. Moore thought McQueen was trying to show his financial backers at Gucci Group that he was a serious designer in his own right, and could produce commercially viable clothing.


Despite these positive notes, there was a general feeling that the collection was not a success. WWD complained that the limited palette made the clothing feel dull and repetitive at times. Robin Givhan from The Washington Post found the collection lacked variety, and wrote that "McQueen seemed to retreat to the safety of overzealous tailoring and goofball flourishes" rather than challenging himself. Friedman felt the show was "missing his usual dramatic charge", but thought that some designs had a "subtle power". Mower concluded that Pantheon lacked McQueen's signature theatricality and "didn't quite live up to expectations". Both Menkes and Maggie Alderson at The Sydney Morning Herald compared the collection unfavourably to McQueen's previous show, Deliverance (Spring/Summer 2004).
Many reviewers thought the science fiction elements hampered the collection. Menkes wrote that the collection felt like 1960s Space Age fashion and compared several items to costumes from Star Trek. Moore felt many designs were "too Queen Amidala to be wearable". Stephen Todd of The Australian found there was "something disturbing" about the restrictive structure of some of the jackets and dresses, and ultimately felt that he did not understand the collection. At the Toronto Star, David Graham felt the alien styling "looked like a face-lift gone too far".


According to WWD, Pantheon ad Lucem had the 12th-highest pageviews at Style.com for the season. McQueen told Harper's Bazaar in August 2004 that he was unsure "if the press liked the collection much", but said it was selling "phenomenally" at retail.
In retrospect, McQueen's biographers tend to see Pantheon as one of McQueen's less significant works, devoting little analysis to it. Judith Watt, in her biography of McQueen, reports the collection as a disappointment to the audience, who had come to expect the designer to present them with "bread and circuses". However, she felt that the collection embodied "artful simplicity", writing that the draped bias-cut dresses demonstrated McQueen's understanding of how fabric worked with the body. Katherine Gleason, in her book Alexander McQueen: Evolution, found the collection "elegant and wearable". Andrew Wilson barely remarks on the clothing in Blood Beneath the Skin, and journalist Dana Thomas omits the show entirely from Gods and Kings. In the Little Book of Alexander McQueen, Karen Homer wrote that McQueen had successfully created a collection which pared his designs down to "his signature styles", but had done so "at the cost of an impressive show".


Fashion journalist Alex Fury argued that Pantheon was an example of McQueen expressing his vision "through the bodies of his models" rather than through elaborate set dressing; in this case through the use of LED-inset garments. Wilson felt that the final scene, in which Kuik seemed to await being taken by aliens to another dimension, "articulated McQueen's desire for transcendence". Kristin Knox suggested that the exaggerated necklines from Looks 52 through 54 were visual precursors of the highly structured silhouettes he presented in The Girl Who Lived in the Tree (Autumn/Winter 2008) and The Horn of Plenty (Autumn/Winter 2009). She wrote that the collection marked "the evolution of his designs from fashions simply worn by models to designs integrated with their human carriers, becoming an organic part of them, like a second skin".
The showpiece finale gown appeared in a photoshoot in the December 2004 edition of Vogue, without the "Orchid" shoulder-piece. It was modelled by McQueen's friend Erin O'Connor and photographed by Tim Walker. The floor-length Greek-inspired column dress from Look 14 was popular in red carpet fashion that season. McQueen returned to Greek-inspired ensembles and the work of Azzedine Alaïa for Neptune (Spring/Summer 2006).
No clothing from Pantheon appeared in the 2011 retrospective Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, but two pieces of jewellery by Shaun Leane were selected for the exhibit's "Cabinet of Curiosities" section: the "Orchid" shoulder-piece worn in the final look, and a pair of disc earrings in copper. One dress and one pair of boots from Pantheon appeared in the 2022 exhibition Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse. Curators described the dress as an example of how McQueen's "proficiency in piecing translates into garments that generate sinuous movement around the body". The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Australia owns a beaded evening dress in silk organza and chiffon from Pantheon.
In 2017, McQueen's longtime collaborator Shaun Leane auctioned a number of pieces he had created for the house at Sotheby's in New York. The "Orchid" shoulder-piece sold for $43,750.