If you haven’t made it to the V&A for Alexander McQueen – Savage Beauty exhibition, you need to get your skates on – it’s only around until 2 August!
And so should you try and make it? Well I think yes….
I was lucky enough to see the exhibition at a corporate event after work last week and it is truly amazing!
The exhibition is centred around McQueen’s various catwalk collections, each showcased in a differently themed room. This is not the usual ‘stuffy’ museum exhibition – the room themes are wild and use the space differently, one room was decorated like an ossuary (walls made out of bones) and in the background there is lots of music and screens showing recordings of the actual catwalk shows.
Everything is interspersed with quotes from McQueen like the above, explaining his influences or ins with a particular collection.
I love that you can get up and close to all the designs, despite the fact that I wouldn’t be able to wear (or want to wear!) some of them! This means that you can see the detail and intricacy that goes into making these art works – art because that’s what it’s presented as.
It was interesting to see the influences behind each of the collections, gothic, tribal, nationalistic with Scottish tartan (he may have been brought up in London but never forgot his roots in Scotland!).
He had a mission to ‘create pieces that can be handed down, like a heirloom’
This greets you on the way in – freaky…. As are some of McQueen’s designs.
One room was a two storey cabinet of curiosities – including a lot of his accessories such as the themed head gear, shoes with an oriental theme and exaggerated platforms, amour headdresses, sparkles, feathers, wings and even a metallic spine decoration – looking like something out of an Alien film!
So much creativity and passion and cutting edge designs – his ability to shock – for example with the bumster trousers that required models to shave everything – but also produce clothes that are truly beautiful.
Definitely worth experiencing.
As I mentioned already the exhibition is only on til 2 August, they have released extra tickets for the last two weekends – but be ready to go at 4am!!
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