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Alexander McQueen Spring Summer 2015

Ready to Wear

(Style.com 2014)

 

Nine minutes and twenty seconds of sleek Samurai strides emerging from darkness, set the tone for this season's Alexander McQueen. The runway, gently sprinkled with Marc Quinn's Gargantaun painted bronze Orchid sculptures (Vogue 2014), transformed the space into a playful battle ground, circled by majestic warriors. Sarah Burton opted for black pigments to set a rather deep tone for this season's Spring / Summer Collection, with a chosen palette of blossom pink, red and black (Vogue 2014).

 

The strong theme developed, extending too to hair and make up, which served to enhance the Samurai warrior aroma., this was evident with faces covered in angular black laquer masks and hair agressivley pulled back into neatly folded pony tails. (Vogue 2014).

 

The structured feel is evident in the silhouette, this contrasted to the fluid cherry blossom prints, that created a tranquil image of a Geisha girl. Here we can see how Burton has combined the hard and soft, depicting the energy of a woman.

 

The entire range lent an air of erotica, Burton made a point of opening up necklines and slicing slits into sleeves that opened windows to the flesh (Vogue 2014).

 

A long standing stigma has been placed on Japanese Geisha girls, when someone thinks of a Geisha, they think of a glorified prostitute. This is far from the truth as Geisha's are entertainers and they are trained vigorously in art, music and dancing. Furthermore if you translate Geisha into English you get "Artist" (Geisha 2002).

 

Burton is well known for her attention to detail and focus on handcraft. This particular range made way for deeply cut angular necklines along with harness styled black panels which were placed on a background of light floral prints. This made way fot the modern women and her sexuality. Also subtle godets were inserted into flared skirts which gave the illusion of movement although the fabric used was stiff and made the outfit appear rather static. Lastly the off centre button stands gave way to a modern transformed kimono.

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Alexander McQueen Spring Summer 2001

VOSS

You are in a world, immersed, your eyes lock onto Kate Moss as she appears, finally.

 

(Voss, Kate Moss, Spring Summer 2014)

“I think there is beauty in everything. What ‘normal’ people would perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it.” –Alexander McQueen

 

Voss, which has yet to be defined, can be described as Lee Alexander McQueen’s "Asylum show".

 

The models - including Kate Moss, Karen Elson and Jade Parfitt - walked inside a mirrored box and couldn't see the audience as they sat in a dimmed seating section surrounding it; perhaps explaining their willingness to completely let go and assume their respective roles (Vogue 2014).

 

The models portrayed demented girls, wearing hospital headbands and everything from extraordinary mussel-shell skirts to impossibly chic pearl-coloured cocktail dresses, slithered and strutted while uselessly attempting to fly over the cuckoo's nest. Alexander McQueen described the bandages as representative of surgery- surgery to change the way you are (Style.com 2014).

 

 VOSS, was just one example of the powerful messages McQueen was able to communicate through his clothing (VOSS 2014).

His collection included gothic, theatrical pieces,  a dress with a miniature castle and rat posing as a shoulder pad; a top made out of a jigsaw puzzle; and a huge feathered creation with stuffed eagles suspended over the model's head, poised to attack. But amidst all the insanity, there was a cornucopia of startlingly elegant—and wearable—pantsuits, flouncy party dresses, and even a spectator pump or two (Style.com 2014).

 

But that was not it, McQueen immersed himself within each concept and idea, he crawled through his mind and brought forward a true masterpiece, it wasn't just about the fashionshow, or the the clothes, it was to McQueen about the message, about how the audience felt, about how he could evoke a feeling that could not be described.

 

After the last model left the stage, the glass box in the middle began to open. The four glass walls smashed onto the ground sending glass shards flying everywhere, to reveal a naked Michelle Olley reclining in a chair, wearing a mask with moths all over her body. As soon as the walls dropped, hundreds of moths flew out in all directions, finally free from the constraints of the little box (VOSS 2014).

 

“Basically, it’s all about decay oppression,” says McQueen to Michelle Olley.

“You’ll be in a box, well, a box within a box, and at the end of the show the sides will come crashing down and all the moths will fly out…”

 

Michelle Olley wrote

 

But almost as scary—and intriguing—was the thought that I was turning myself over to someone else’s idea, and I wasn’t really sure what that idea was. Did I represent freedom or oppression, death or rebirth, or just dusty, ample flesh? My body’s going to be so at odds with the fashion sparrows and bony old crow-people in the audience. There’s something really liberating about allowing yourself to become monstrous. Becoming other. You can feel most alive in moments like Most of us—me absolutely included—sleepwalk through our lives on auto-repeat. I want to kick myself awake. I want to be part of a ritual, however elegantly disguised. That’s why I’m doing it. Probably.

(Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty 2011).

 

The finale presentation of Michelle Olley laying naked in the middle of the broken box was inspired by Joel-Peter Witkin’s ‘Sanitarium’ from 1939.

Alexander McQueen wanted to make his audience question the notion of conventional beauty. What is conventional beauty? What is normal? What lengths would people take to achieve what they believe is considered to be ‘beautiful’? The finale of Michelle Olley trapped inside a glass box with a mask and tubes sticking out of her may have been an exaggeration of the way society treats individuals not considered to be “beautiful”…by putting them away, hiding them behind a mask, ridiculing them for who they are…but is this really an exaggeration? McQueen seemed to find the beauty in what we normally would not consider beautiful. To McQueen, there was something so beautiful, so vulnerable and so delicate about the girl of “Sanitarium” (VOSS 2014).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Sanitarium 1939)

 

What I have always admired about McQueen, is a skill that very few designers possess, the line. The line between what can be achieved and what can evoke emotion. That line was drawn by McQueen himself, he is that line and no other creator will be close enough to even smell the chalk that the line was drawn with.

 

His concepts were thoroughly thought out, his designs promoted the idea of wearing it on your physical body and wearing these garments with your sub conscious. Although his death is a tragedy, it is a fight that all creative beings will go through, the mind does not think like others, the dreams are passages where creations are ignited, the thoughts have no labels and eventually doubt creeps in , neglecting begins and the second guess, which is the cruel end for creative minds.

 

McQueen had the gift to trust his mind, his thoughts and himself, this fashionshow pays tribute to his deep subconscious, the clarity of each garment, the set-up, the mirrors, the bandages, the moths, was magical.

 

 

 

 

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(Yukikoandthe 2012)

 

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