As a longtime admirer of Alexander McQueen’s ability to take fabric and transform it into art, I have been looking forward to the ‘Savage Beauty’ retrospective, originally held in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, coming home to London. The V & A Museum has staged some excellent fashion exhibitions in the past, with Versace and Vivienne Westwood staying in my mind as particularly good, so I had high hopes for the presentation of McQueen’s work.
And I was not disappointed. This is a large retrospective that pays particular attention to ensuring that the design sensibilities of McQueen’s collections are reflected in the environments in which they are displayed. So his early collections, that were originally shown in warehouses, are presented against a grey concrete backdrop while pieces from the 2001 “Voss” show are displayed in a reproduction of the glass box that formed the basis of the show, where the models looked out at the audience. At the end, the lights go out and all that remains is a reflection of ourselves. Fittingly, the finale of the exhibition features McQueen’s last complete collection, ‘Plato’s Atlantis’, before his death in February 2010. Six statuesque mannequins stand in front of a huge projection of the film that was played during the catwalk show. Aggressively beautiful, their stance and clothes sum up McQueen’s vision of woman: sometimes beautiful, sometimes not, but always powerful and dominant. The sets were, in fact, designed by long-term collaborator of McQueen, creative director Sam Gainsbury, and production designer Joseph Bennett and it is clear how much effort has been spent in making each room offset the clothes perfectly.
The centrepiece of the exhibition, Cabinet of Curiosities, is reminiscent of a room in the Bowie exhibition which featured floor to ceiling displays of artefacts and video clips accompanied by a patchwork soundtrack. In ‘Savage Beauty’ the room becomes almost overwhelming in terms of the number of items included, the different soundtracks that fade in and out, the darkness and the quantity of people in the room (and this was preview day, so it wasn’t too crowded). It is an amazing showcase of the imaginative mind of a man who chose to design a skirt out of plywood, a corset with a metal spine attached and a hat with a bird’s next attached.
The most poignant part of the exhibition – for me – is a display case in the Romantic Gothic Room housing five exquisite pieces from McQueen’s last – unfinished and unshown -collection. They provide a snapshot of the creative direction he was heading next, as well as a stark reminder of what we have lost in terms of a creative talent and a visionary designer.
To quote McQueen himself:
“There is no way back for me now. I’m going to take you on journeys you’ve never dreamed were possible.”
The exhibition takes us on an amazing journey through Alexander’s McQueen’s creative output and shows us the work of a true creative genius. It is 2015’s “must-see” exhibition.
The illustrated catalogue to accompany the exhibition can be purchased, along with other wonderful McQueen gifts, from vandashop.com Further information is available on the museum’s website: vam.ac.uk
All photographs are the copyright of the Victorian and Albert Museum, London
Clockwise from top: The last unfinished collection, promotion image taken from ‘Horn of Plenty’ collection, Plato’s Atlantis display, Cabinet of Curiosities.
Now to Tate Britain for a smaller, less glitzy, exhibition about Alexander McQueen, but just as revealing about the man, his work and his creativity. ‘Nick Waplington/Alexander Mcqueen: Working Progress’ (10 March – 17 May) is a photographic exhibition featuring a section of images taken from an ‘access all areas’ photography project commissioned by McQueen to document the birth, development and public debut of his 2009 ‘Horn of Plenty’ collection. The collection was a pulling-together of many of McQueen’s favourite and previously-used themes and ideas and therefore had a feeling of recycling about it. To push the theme even further, Philip Treacy can be seen grappling parts from old washing machines and driers into hats. And to push the theme perhaps a little too far, the McQueen shots are interspersed with images taken at recycling plants in London and Israel. No matter, the shots of McQueen deep in concentration as he pins fabric to an expressionless model are worth the price of admission alone. We see mood boards, fabric boards, and interns laboriously glueing feathers to a garment with a hot glue gun. The final room features the catwalk-ready creations on the verge of facing their fate on the catwalk. In a couple of the images we see McQueen, still hard at work, adjusting fabric seconds before the show begins. Poignantly these were the last images that Waplington took of McQueen: a few short months later, the designer took his own life.
More information: Nick Waplington/Alexander McQueen: Working Process
Olivia Fawkes
March 14 2015
Design Matters 