How many references can you pack into the design of a store? A lot, if it’s Alexander McQueen. Architect David Collins describes his inspiration for the new Miami outlet—now officially launched, following a soft-launch earlier this month—thusly: “It’s about McQueen as a point of view, the idea of making a dress out of razor clam shells or sheaves of corn, the manipulation of nature to make ornament. We were thinking about eroticism and sexuality. Everything is exaggerated and very slightly distorted.”

Creative Director Sarah Burton goes on to say, “It’s very McQueen to see something from a distance and think it’s one thing and then to look up close and discover something else.” Here are some of those other things you’ll discover, in order of increasing perversity: Rorschach ink blots; flora and fauna, real and imagined; references to Francis Bacon’s paintings of Popes; the architecture of Antonio Gaudi; wall impasto consisting of wings, leaves, shells, cactus flowers, mushroom gills, and seahorse tails; gazelle-hooved and monster-clawed furniture; and finally, tiny skulls and grimacing gargoyles.

The above motley crew of the magically macabre marks the beginning of a new retail concept, to be rolled out to other McQueen stores. Something wicked this way comes, to a mall near you.

Alexander McQueen, 9700 Collins Avenue, Bal Harbour, Miami