T H E D A R K G E N I U S O F
A L E X A N D E R M C Q U E E N :
You have to know the rules to break them, I'm here to break the rules but keep the traditions alive
McQueen was a real hooligan. There are rumours
that while working on a suit for Prince Charles, he
wrote ‘I'm a shithead’ on the inside lining of his
jacket with a marker. This was all Alexander,
provocation was his favourite form of expression.
McQueen managed to do the impossible: to
undermine the conservative English fashion of the
time with his dark, theatrical and romantic
aesthetics. It is unlikely that outrageousness and
sensation were the end in itself for the ‘insufferable
Briton’. Alexander McQueen's hooligan antics were
dictated primarily by a sincere desire to tell the
world a truth unknown to anyone, obvious only to
him. ‘There is a lot of sinister and personal in what I
do, I always put a part of myself into my work - a lot
of melancholy, romance, sad romance. I guess I am
a very sad person,’ said the designer himself.
A dress splashed
with paint from two
cars from an Italian
car factory. With
this gesture,
McQueen was
trying to convey
that the fashion
industry has turned
into a soulless robot
that is only
interested in
commerce.
The show took place behind glass in a dimly lit room. The
lights came on, but to the surprise of the audience, the show
did not start for over an hour. The audience was forced to
look only at their own reflections while waiting for the show
to begin. Meanwhile, McQueen watched the audience's
reaction on the monitor: the audience tried to look away
from the mirror cube to avoid looking at themselves. This
was a thoughtful part of the designer's show, whose main
idea was to ‘turn the fashion industry around to face these
people’. The glass room was illuminated from the inside, and
the whole environment resembled a large ward in a
psychiatric hospital.
To hold a dance marathon
instead of a regular show - only
McQueen could have come up
with such a prank at the time. The
fashion genius was inspired by
Sidney Pollack's 1969 film, ‘They
Shoot Horses When They're Down,
Don't They?’. Along with the
models, professional actors also
took part in the show. The show
was a dance competition set in
the Great Depression, when
young people danced wildly to
the beat of their own drum to
forget about problems and lack
of prospects.
The Horn of Plenty show remains one of the most
striking in fashion history. With his knowledge of
ornithology, McQueen could not help but be
inspired by the structure of birds, and feathers have
repeatedly become an addition to the designer's
collections. According to Miranda Almond, editor of
British Vogue, ‘this was the show that restores faith
in fashion’.
Inspired by the idea of global warming and life
after the apocalypse, Alexander McQueen's 2010
show featured a fantasy where the earth is
inhabited by half-human, half-reptilian creatures
adapted to life on land and underwater. The main
idea was that ‘man will have to return to where he
came from’. The Plato's Atlantis collection was
McQueen's prediction of the apocalypse.
Alla Kostromichova
Thank you
for
attention
