Certain contemporary fashion designers are exalted as gods. These hemline giants create clothing designs for women (and sometimes men) that are intended to transcend the staid ready to wear, the plaintive Peter Pan collar and other fashion faux pas.

Certain designers are best known for collections which celebrate their obsessions. The poster child for this might be Gianna Versace (1946-1997). He clothing featuring designs by artists Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol including an arresting array of fashionable bondage gear.

Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) is the direct descendent of designers like Versace. The exhibition Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos and Muse at the National Gallery of Victoria glorifies his personal vision. The extensive exhibition introduces us to his early work, his fashion inspirations taken from art and social history and his final collection on the theme of Climate Change. (I already have invested in Climate Change couture by purchasing second hand clothing!) As I looked at his designs, I found my latent Puritan burbling up alongside my weary feminist. In McQueen’s creative world, women are blank canvases for his imagination and their legs ideally are the circumference of a nail file.

As I walked down another gloomy corridor, I felt like I accidentally found myself in a single sex church with all of its members on a permanent water diet or a Grecian temple with handmaidens in clothing that would not fit after one hearty meal. I recalled the famous line of the 1940s’ Hollywood actress Gene Tierney, ‘For all of Hollywood’s rewards, I was hungry for most of those 20 years.’ Imagine being ravenous for your entire career. As I contemplated many of his designs, I knew that if I wanted to wear them it would be necessary to give up food entirely.

McQueen understood the beauty and sensuality of good fabrics; he enjoyed using a wide palette of colour and textures and he created well-tailored garments, but no matter how talented, his work is tainted by designs that perpetuate unrealistic and unhealthy body images of women.

This extreme fashion statement isn’t new. He is just part of an ongoing tradition where fashion fortifies misogynistic and sexist attitudes. If women can’t freely move in clothing and shoes, what does this signify? After all, we no longer bind women’s feet, use arsenic to whiten our complexions or have bones removed from our ribcage to create a smaller waistline. Then there were the Regency maidens who hosed down their gowns in order to show off their curves and thus caught pneumonia. Sigh.

And it has to be admitted that often women are grateful collaborators with these creative palookas. What this exhibition confirms is that women are still being encouraged to be in the thrall of a patriarchal view of themselves. We feel most valuable (and glamorous) when we reflect back to ourselves what men want to see, how they want us to look and behave, and this in lieu of freedom of movement and being safe in the world (think stilettos and platform shoes.)

McQueen’s work has been criticized for being degrading to woman and he has been called ‘the designer who hates women.’ This exhibition tries to minimize the collateral damage by concentrating on his designs as thoughtful reflections of art and social history, the vibrancy of different materials, excellent garment construction and the excitement of the catwalk.

But frankly, I am cranky about once again seeing how major institutions glorify an anti-women fashion aesthetic disguised as fun, frivolous and fabulous. So, let’s imagine the reverse for a moment where a women designer creates fashions for men that are so tight they can’t breath or eat and shoe designs that make them they look like they are tottering on two inflated Eiffel Towers with sequins. Think Putin or Xi Jinping in drag.

Given McQueen’s mental health struggles and untimely demise, it seems unkind to critique his life’s work in such an unfavourable way. But McQueen seemed to court controversy so I have the utmost confidence that other designers will carry forward his tradition of women-loathing fashion and impossible standards of beauty.