This was the dress that greeted me at the start of the exhibit was from the 2001 Voos collection. The dress' bodice is made of glass microscope slides that were hand dyed red. The skirt is all ostrich feathers that were hand dyed as well. Truly stunning and the piece evokes the feeling of the blood right under the first layers of our skin.
These unique and stunning pants are from McQueen's Highland Rape collection from 1995. The pants are called "bumsters" and were an experiment in elongating the body. For McQueen, the most exciting part of anybody’s body, male or female, was the bottom of the spine. And the bumsters is really about showcasing that part of the body.
As one of my super favorite pieces, this dress from 2010 was in the same room as the "bumsters" and showed a technical maturity compared to that of the construction of his infamous pants. The dress is all jersey knit. Now to make a knit dress that impeccably and beautifully structured is pretty much impossible but McQueen Managed somehow. He also created the curves of the dress while the then finished product was on a mannequin and he just began cutting into the piece, free form, creating the curves you see now.
No words can describe the beauty in this piece especially in person. The fact that this is all soft hand dyed feathers, placed on such a structured piece is a exquisite contrast. From a 2009 collection, this piece evokes a raven and this symbolism of death and decay that is McQueen's signature style.
This piece from a 1997 collection was hand beaded with these rich, small, black beads creating the look of lace. This is meant to represents one of the stages of mourning with the lilac color. The jutted neck seems the act as a form of protection against the wearer from literally letting her guard down while silently in mourning.
This jacket from 1997 has the print: The Thief to the Left of Christ by Robert Campin digitally woven into the fabric. It is also unique in there is no shoulder pads creating the sweeping shape in the garment. The internal construction is what makes this piece.
This 1999 dress was literally created right on the runway. The model who was wearing the dress, which was at first, just a plain piece of gathered muslin, stood in front of two robot arms that began spray painting the dress with meticulously pre-programed software telling the arm what to do and what color to spray. The fact that people got to see the piece being made makes it that much more amazing.
There is some eerie beauty to this dress with its delicate lace ripped and worn away, there is a sense of helplessness and loss to the dress. McQueen created this piece for a show titled Highland Rape, to show the"rape" of Scotland by England during the Jacobite risings of the eighteenth century and the Highland Clearances of the nineteenth century.
This stunning dress in made of mostly real flowers from McQueen's 2007 show, Sarabande. The piece was meant to evoke beauty and a prettiness to death and dying.
This dress was part of a collection called It's Only a Game in which McQueen created sports inspired glamorous couture pieces and then for the fashion show, the looks were displayed with the models playing life-sized chess. Just watch this: http://youtu.be/M5gY5DXrb48
This crimson coat and delicate empire-waist dress culminated a collection from 2008, inspired by the queens of England. With an enormous volume of fabric at the neck that is all bulleted and at the hem is all bulleted yet still appears very light.The collection, called The Girl Who Lived in the Tree, was dreamy and romantically nationalistic, tinged with irony.
This final piece in the exhibition is from a 2010 collection entitled, Pluto's Atlantis. This ensemble is made of enamel palliates. McQueen commented on the show saying “[This collection predicted a future in which] the ice cap would melt . . . the waters would rise and . . . life on earth would have to evolve in order to live beneath the sea once more or perish. Humanity [would] go back to the place from whence it came.”
McQueen had one show after Pluto's Atlantis (and my personal favorite) Angels and Demon's.
The exhibit is stunning and amazing. While I learned a lot about McQueen, I also gained so much inspiration for myself as a designer and an artist.
"You’ve got to know the rules to break them. That’s what I’m here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.”
—Alexander McQueen
All photos courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
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