Fashion People

A year without Alexander McQueen

A year passed from the tragedy that shocked the fashion world: the death of Alexander McQueen. I pay a tribute to this great artist (He was an artist for me) proposing again a post from my old blog. I wrote it after seeing Lady Gaga in “Bad Romance” video wearing the entire Plato Atlantis Collection as in the fashion show. In this way, I wish to greet one of my favorite designers. I miss his style. R.I. P. Lee Alexander McQueen.

Lady Gaga and Alexander McQueen: When excess meets excess.
I’m here to talk about fashion and pop music. Actually, it’s better to specify, I want to speak about the new style-artist couple of the season: Lady Gaga and Alexander McQueen. The Plato’s Atlantis Spring Summer 2010 fashion show was the matchmaker of this artistic engagement.
In his Plato’s Atlantis collection Alexander McQueen staged a futuristic interpretation of the mythical city of Atlantis. Women look like aliens, their bodies seem to live a real genetic metamorphosis, infact they remind me the Metamorphosis series of the contemporary artist Matthew Barney.
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Reptile scales take over the iced pale skin with an unusual animal print effect born from a big work of research about “decorative patterns” existing in nature (reptiles’ skin, insects) digitally reinterpreted and printed on fabrics.
We have already seen a similar transformation in the last McQueen summer collection, but this kind of work it’s totally new.
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A camouflage military uniform becomes a floral bouquet changing also the shape of the collar from shoulder to shoulder.
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Several materials were used in this collection: precious leather, metallic mesh of medieval knights or silk chiffon that re-creates the waves of the sea surrounding the island of Atlantis.
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The shoes are the real protagonist of the show (the Armadillo shoes): very huge elaborate sculptures with meticulous details, special effects and applications. Some shoes seem to be inspired by the armor of a scorpion or to a snake while is hitting its prey.
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Lady Gaga could not choose a best way to present her new single “Bad Romance”, in fact Alexander used it as soundtrack for the final catwalk of the show, when He come out to take a bow.

This couple is the most successful combination of fashion’s excesses: a very excessive designer and an extremely excessive singer who wears his creations as “work clothes”.

In “Bad Romance” video we can see a lot of outfits taken from the catwalk: the laminated chivalry mesh; the zoomorphic shoes; the black dress with leather inserts and finally the gold dress that echoes Queen Elizabeth I style.

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Other special items used in the video were the glasses inspired by the façade of the Arab Institute in Paris by Jean Nouvel, and, in the final scene seems that Lady Gaga pays a tribute to Alexander “quoting” the famous picture by David LaChapelle who portrayed him in “Burning down the House” for March 1997 U.S. Vanity Fair.
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This is pure excess, in all its forms: art, music, fashion.

Italian architect into fashion. Art curator in love with books, flea markets and interior design.

6 Comments on “A year without Alexander McQueen

  1. Non trovi che alcune tipologie di abiti siano davvero assurdi e inutili? Non converrebbe elaborare abiti meno particolari ma più semplici investendo sui materiali e non sulla spettacolarità? Sono troppo classico, lo so, ma non credo che un pezzo di lamiera di alluminio possa definirsi vestito!

    A presto!!!
    Lollo

  2. @Lollo: Si certo, è per questo che lo considero un artista e non uno stilista. Molte delle sue creazioni presenti sulla passerella non sono state neppure messe sul mercato (vedi le Armadillo), ma solo concesse a celebrities per i red carpets. Lui creava opere, mentre il suo staff (tra cui l’erede Sarah Burton) rimanevano con i piedi per terra rendendo vestibili,ma soprattutto vendibili, le sue idee della passerella. Andando nel sito e vedendo i lookbooks delle stagioni disegnate da McQueen è evidente che molti vestiti non hanno mai sfilato e sono stati cambiati appositamente per il mercato. 😉 Ciao Lollo a presto!

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