Some fashion inspiration manifests directly. For Sarah Burton’s last collection at Alexander McQueen, the designer looked to the Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz, filling McQueen’s amorphous runway with her sculptures as well as utilizing Abakanowicz’s shapes and visual signatures in her unabashedly sensual designs; while at Boss, designer Marco Falcioni explained that the general office-appropriate vibe of the collection came via a viewing of the supremely weird 1999 movie Being John Malkovich. For other designers, like Ambush’s Yoon Ahn, it was more about the “attitude, angst, and rebellious spirit” of ’90s musicians like Fiona Apple and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, but the clothes themselves did not reflect any specific style quirks of either artist.
The classic conversation when meeting a designer at their studio or backstage always starts with the question: “What was your inspiration?” While lately designers have eschewed proclamations such as “I was thinking about my woman vacationing in the south of France,” in favor of talking about building a wardrobe, lots of interesting references came up this season.
Read through for an A to Z guide to all the movies, books, artists, and even art movements that served as fashion inspiration this season.