Alexander McQueen

Product Information

As evolution advanced and each model charted the progression from life on land to life under the sea, their features changed. Hair was either plaited tight to the head in mounds or sculpted into fin-like peaks, while the contours of models’ faces were distorted with prosthetic enhancements, both features connoting biological adaptation. Colours and textures shifted with the transition from species to species. Camouflage prints of roses, and jacquards depicting moths in green and brown tones, referenced life above the sea; amphibious snake prints suggested a transition to water; and designs in blues and purples incorporated images of ocean creatures, such as stingrays and jellyfish. Here McQueen perfected the use of digital printing techniques with each design engineered specifically for individual garments. With most books, we go through many rounds of cover designs, and it is often hard to get consensus on the right image. Early in the planning, the exhibition’s curator Andrew Bolton and I met with the representatives from the McQueen organization in the Museum’s staff café. They showed us an invitation from one of McQueen’s last runway shows featuring a lenticular image, which shifted from a portrait of McQueen to a patterned skull depending on how we angled the card. Suddenly we had a cover. It never happens like that. One of the things that made the Savage Beauty catalogue such a success is the evocative imagery by fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø, and I think readers might be interested to know that there is a little more to the photographs than meets the eye. How did these images come to be? When you see a woman wearing McQueen, there's a certain hardness to the clothes that makes her look powerful. It kind of fends people off."

What do you think most contributes to the popularity and longevity of this book over the past decade? I do not follow fashion closely by any stretch of the imagination, but found Alexander McQueen's craftsmanship breathtaking and his complex ideas expressed about Nature, culture, politics, gender, sexuality and beauty really fascinating.There has to be a sinister aspect, whether it’s melancholy or sadomasochist. I think everyone has a deep sexuality, and sometimes it’s good to use a little of it – and sometimes a lot of it – like a masquerade.’ McQueen, arguably more of a performance artist than even a fashion designer, used every influence, everything he learned, to form his art in his unique interpretational way. Each idea was personalized using world history and his imagination. His incredible attention to tailoring, learned on Saville Row during an apprenticeship at the tailor shop used by the Monarchy, is staggering. He could cut a pattern from a vision in his head in 3 minutes!!!

The finale was inspired by a photograph by Joel-Peter Witkin entitled Sanitarium (1983), which depicted a voluptuous woman connected via a breathing tube to a stuffed monkey. On McQueen's catwalk, the role was played by the fetish writer Michelle Olley. Like Byron, Beethoven, and Delacroix, McQueen is an exemplar of the Romantic individual, the hero-artist who staunchly followed the dictates of his inspiration. As a designer, he doggedly promoted freedom of thought and expression and championed the authority of the imagination.” Our book holds up because of its exceptional photography, design, text, and curation. Andrew selected each piece to tell a broader story. Thumbnail images of some of McQueen’s fashion shows give a sense of his creative process and show how he presented his work. Quotes from McQueen about his work appear throughout the book. Bolton chose not to include any biographical information in the original New York Savage Beauty because he felt that McQueen’s life was “laid bare in his work for all to see”. There is a purity to this approach and it is surely true that our appreciation of McQueen’s art is not enhanced by knowing the details of his nights – and days, come to that – of drinking and drug-taking, the fights with various boyfriends, the liposuction he resorted to in a desperate attempt to slim down to a more fashionable weight. There is, however, one fact about McQueen’s life that emerges from Andrew Wilson’s biography as a possible key to his creative vision as well as to his final depression. Though not as authoritative as Thomas’s book on McQueen’s place in the world of fashion, Wilson had the benefit of interviews with the designer’s family, which makes his biography the more intimate and affecting of the two. At the age of nine or 10, McQueen started to be sexually abused by a violent man – Terence Anthony Huyler – who was married to his sister Janet. When he later confided in Blow, he said that this man stole his innocence. The young McQueen also watched powerless on several occasions when Janet was beaten or half-strangled by Huyler. Janet, who had no idea that her husband was abusing her little brother, remained close to McQueen all his life, almost like a second mother. Wilson convincingly argues that Janet became “the blueprint” for his clothes, a woman who was “vulnerable but strong”. Sometimes the women on the runway were McQueen himself, other times they were Janet. This, writes Wilson, “was the woman he wanted to protect and empower through his clothes; the patina of armour that he created for her would shield her from danger”. Kate Bethune, Senior Research Assistant, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. ‘Encyclopedia of Collections’ in Alexander McQueen, ed. Claire Wilcox, V&A Publishing 2015.Cinematic references to sci-fi and fantasy films including Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), James Cameron’s The Abyss (1989) and John McTiernan’s Predator (1987) found expression not only in aspects such as the show invitation and colour palette but also shoe designs. The models stalked the catwalk in 25 cm heels, the 3D printed ‘Alien’ design inspired by the artwork of H.R. Giger (a member of the special effects team for Alien). The ‘Armadillo’ boot created a form entirely without apparent reference to the natural anatomy of the foot, the scaly surface of designs rendered in python skin invoking the armoured shell of the animal after which the shoe was named. The book also captures a certain moment in time. It represents a period of transition for the house as it reflected on its beginnings and looked toward the future. This is a fine tribute to a fashion designer and conceptual artist who died far too young but whose contributions to contemporary fashion and art will live on. This book is likely to become a collector's item, so handsomely designed and present as it is. The lenticulars are manufactured in Italy and each one is secured to the book by hand with strong, double-sided tape. The bindery is in Calenzano, near Prato, which had a strong textile industry. Some of the materials that McQueen used were made there, so it was nice for the book to have this additional connection to his work.

The collection featured a number of exoticised garments, including a coat and a dress appliquéd with roundels in the shape of chrysanthemums. A fragile, blood-red glass and ostrich feather gown offered a meditation on life's transience, while a thermal image of the designer's face was woven into the fabric of a silk coat.I spoke with Gwen Roginsky—who has served as the publication director and production manager of Costume Institute books for twenty years—about her experience working on the Museum’s best-selling publication to date. Alexander McQueen's dashing creativity was expressed through the technical artistry of his designs and the dramatic intensity of his fashion shows. Drawing on avant-garde installation and performance art, these were also emphatically autobiographical. McQueen fearlessly challenged the conventions of fashion. Rare among designers, he saw beyond clothing's physical constraints to its conceptual and imaginative possibilities. Savage Mind ‘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.’

It amazes me! Perhaps it reached a tipping point and became so iconic that everyone affected by McQueen’s work wanted to have it.After his tailoring apprenticeship, he went on to learn exact military tailoring and then the detailed art of the Japanese kimono.