The theme of the McQueen's Savage Beauty narrates dark vs. light, past vs. future, masculine vs. feminine.The designer inspires such magnificent pieces of art which really amaze you into deep pleasure of self consciousness.
It is said that these pieces fit McQueen's life like a jigsaw puzzle...
The study of contrasts in the exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute shows McQueen, the artist and intellectual, as he was celebrated during his career – and even after his suicide at age 40 in February of 2010.
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Dress, Sarabande, spring/summer 2007
Photography by Sølve Sundsbø courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Remember Sam Taylor-Wood’s dying fruit? Things rot…I used flowers because they die. My mood was darkly romantic at the time.” – Lee Alexander McQueen |
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Ensemble, Plato’s Atlantis, spring/summer 2010
Photography by Sølve Sundsbø courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“[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.” – Lee Alexander McQueen |
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| Dress, autumn/winter 2010 |
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Ensemble, Dante, autumn/winter 1996–97
Photography by Sølve Sundsbø courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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Ensemble, It’s a Jungle Out There, Autumn/Winter 1997–98
Photography by Sølve Sundsbø courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
See the print from 3rd-13th May at Alexander McQueen, 417 West 14th Street, New York. |
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Dress, VOSS, Spring/Summer 2001
Photography by Sølve Sundsbø courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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Ensemble, VOSS, Spring/Summer 2001
Photography by Sølve Sundsbø courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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Dress, The Horn of Plenty, Autumn/Winter 2009–10
Photography by Sølve Sundsbø courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Dress, Irere, Spring/Summer 2003 |
"McQueen was always drawn to a challenge, especially when he could question normal conventions of beauty and fashion" says exhibit curator Andrew Bolton.
McQueen had tattooed on his arm a Shakespeare quote, as a starting point for the show: "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind."
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| Dress, VOSS, spring/summer 2001 |
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Dress, Widows of Culloden, autumn/winter 2006–7
Photography by Sølve Sundsbø courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“When we put the antlers on the model and then draped over it the lace embroidery that we had made, we had to poke them through a £2,000 piece of work. But then it worked because it looks like she’s rammed the piece of lace with her antlers. There’s always spontaneity. You’ve got to allow for that in my shows.” – Lee Alexander McQueen
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Dress, No. 13, spring/summer 1999
Photography by Sølve Sundsbø courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“[The finale of this collection] was inspired by an installation by artist Rebecca Horn of two shotguns firing blood-red paint at each other.” – Lee Alexander McQueen |
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| Dress, autumn/winter 2010–11 |
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Ensemble, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Autumn/Winter 2002–3
“This collection was inspired by Tim Burton. It started off dark and then got more romantic as it went along.”
– Lee Alexander McQueen, Numéro, July/August 2002 |
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Ensemble, VOSS, Spring/Summer 2001
“I have always loved the mechanics of nature and to a lesser extent my work is always informed by that.”
– Lee Alexander McQueen, Numéro, December 2007 |
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Ensemble, No. 13, Spring/Summer 1999
McQueen made this ensemble with carved prosthetic legs for Aimee Mullins. Mullins is a world-class Paralympic athlete, and she modeled the boots for his 1999 show, No. 13.
– Exhibtion Curator Andrew Bolton |
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Dress, Eshu, Autumn/Winter 2000–2001
“[I try to] push the silhouette. To change the silhouette is to change the thinking of how we look. What I do is look at ancient African tribes, and the way they dress. The rituals of how they dress. . . . There’s a lot of tribalism in the collections.”
- Lee Alexander McQueen, Purple Fashion, Issue 7, Summer 2007 |
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“Bumster” Skirt, Highland Rape, Autumn/Winter 1995–96
“[With 'bumsters'] I wanted to elongate the body, not just show the bum. To me, that part of the body—not so much the buttocks, but the bottom of the spine—that’s the most erotic part of anyone’s body, man or woman.”
- Lee Alexander McQueen, The Guardian Weekend, July 6, 1996 |
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Coat, Dante, Autumn/Winter 1996–97
“I spent a long time learning how to construct clothes, which is important to do before you can deconstruct them.”
- Lee Alexander McQueen, Self Service, Spring/Summer 2002 |
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Jacket, Joan, Autumn/Winter 1998–99
“[Though cutting, I try] to draw attention to our unrelenting desire for perfection. The body parts that I focus on change depending on the inspirations and references for the collection and what silhouettes they demand.”
- Lee Alexander McQueen, Muse, December 2008 |
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Coat, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims (MA Graduation Collection), 1992
“McQueen made this frock coat for his 1992 graduation collection, which he called Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims. The collection’s title reveals his fascination with the Victorian culture. It also established his distinctly narrative, autobiographical approach to design. One of McQueen’s relatives owned an inn that housed a victim of Jack the Ripper.”
– Exhibition Curator Andrew Bolton |
McQueen was a believer of fairy tales, "All of McQueen's collections were fashioned around elaborate narratives, and the exhibition is intended to evoke a gothic fairy tale, a fairy tale that is pushed forward by McQueen's imagination."
Stella McCartney, a close friend of McQueen's, and Sarah Burton, his longtime deputy and designer of the current McQueen collection, attended the opening, both saying that they were there to honor him and his contribution to their industry. Many more of the world's top designers, models and movie stars were expected to pay similar homage Monday night at a gala celebrating the exhibit.
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Dress, Widows of Culloden, Autumn/Winter 2006–7
“Birds in flight fascinate me. I admire eagles and falcons. I’m inspired by a feather, but also its colour, its graphics, its weightlessness and its engineering. It’s so elaborate. In fact, I try and transpose the beauty of a bird to women.”
– Lee Alexander McQueen, Numéro, December 2007 |
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Dress, Plato’s Atlantis, Spring/Summer 2010
“I like to think of myself as a plastic surgeon with a knife.”
– Lee Alexander McQueen, Wynn, Winter 2007/08 |
McQueen had a fine tailor's touch and a sense of humor that was "cheeky and filthy, in the best sense of the words," said McCartney, wearing a crisp menswear-style suit.
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