From McQueen to Venus: Brave Women Before getting knocked out of the U.S. Open this week, Venus Williams made quite a statement with her purple braids, piled in a knot above her visor and complimenting her printed tennis dress. You may cry fault: what about another player, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who seems to be working on the colors of the rainbow? She's also tattooed. People who grew up in the Evert-Connors era may gag, but exotic hair color on the courts is merely a step from the streets, and, in fact, it's a lot more compelling. You need a strong woman to do most things, but Ms. Williams's physical strength, not to mention her beauty, gives power and clarity to a seemingly ugly trend. On mere mortals, fuchsia or lime green hair somehow seems more mute than fierce. Like a rebellion against one's mother, who cares? But it's all that muscle tone, combined with the headdress effect of the knot, that can make you see how the ghastly can become the regal. On the runway, the notion of strong women is something of a joke. There are just too many compromises: the need to make things accessible to large audiences, models who can't act or look the part. Anyway, we don't trust the vision. No insight is gained (or expected) from such expressions. And more often than not, our guides are to be found among performers, and there, too, we are not entirely satisfied. Seeing Ms. Williams made me think of Alexander McQueen. Not any specific collection, but perhaps the one he called "The Horn of Plenty!" is close to what I had in mind. As it happens, the making of this collection, from fall 2009, is the subject of Nick Waplington's splendid book of photos, with a forward by the journalist Susannah Frankel. Basically, Mr. McQueen was deconstructing the notion of consumption - consumer products to cultural icons, like Audrey Hepburn and the women who posed for Irving Penn. All was trash, in his view, a point he imparted with plastic-sheeted hair and piles of junk on the runway. Of course, the clothes were exquisite. But his intent, as he told Ms. Frankel, was to produce discomfort. He said: "The whole package: the set, the lighting, the soundtrack, the girls, all of it sums up the fact that we're living in a mess. And I want to throw that at the audience and to make them think. It's an idea, then another idea, then another, and another, and another. It takes a genius to collapse the walls of safety around your head, and it's not such a common sensation nowadays, but we should celebrate the brave wherever we find them. By the way, the Waplington book is the best fashion book that I've seen so far this season. It's better than most documentaries at showing you the working process of a designer.