Expoziția Savage Beauty organizată la Met în 2011.

youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg0HwLAJyV0

Andrew Bolton.

Titlul – Savage beauty – contrasting opposites in mcq work. Cele două rochii care deschis expo –
temele recurente din creația lui m. polarised opposites, wheters its to do with life or death, lightness
and darknes, predator-pray, man machine. E vorba de rochia roșie și cea albă din scoici.

The Romantic Mind – prima galerie

Concrete, rawness inspirată de aspectul primului atelier al lui m.

Fashion as a vechicle to express very complex ideas and concepts.

Multe din cele expuse par din primele creații; se observă aptitudinile create în perioada Seviel Row
– tailoring.

Romantic Gothic

Aged mirrors, motiv în Edgar Allan Poe – The fall of the house of Usher. M își spunea Poe.

Gotic, partea mai întunecată de 19th Victorianism

Cultul morții dar și personaje, (vampiri, antieroi, eroi-Byron).

O casetă cu colecția postumă, Angels an Demons. Art history, Flemish painting – preferata sa.

Cabinet of curiosities

Practica de 18 th, 19th de a colecționa obiecte de istorie naturală ca fel de a vedea lumea – inima
expoziției. Obiecte care l-au inspirat din natura, primitivismul. Toate temele cu care te confrunți
în întreaga expuenre se află în această galerie.

Sunt expuse și 10 videouri cu momente din prezentările sale.

Romantic nationalism

Tartan, materialul. Colecțiile sale, narative, el e un povestitor.

Scottish heritage, istoria britanică. Scotss-brits luptă

Highland rape, a doua camera. Lemn. Show 1995.

Rape of Scotland by jacobite risings in s 18 și highland clearances în s 19. Violența acelor perioade
reflectată în haine – a tăiat hainele.

Holograma din Widows of Culloden – Kate Moss.

Romanticc exoticism

Music box, rotating turntables.

Alte culture, china, Japonia. Broderia. India

Voss – haine exotizate.

Romantic primitivism

Rusty metal – sinking ships. Colecția Irene. – nava naufragiată, Amazon.

Video deasupra galeriei, de John Muybury.

Predator – pray, primitive – civilized.

Romantic naturalism

Prima parte:

- Desen de mcq ca wallpaper

- Natura, temă rrecurentă
- Natural world, raw material of clothes

A 2-a: Plato – 2010. Colecția care a însumat toate marile teme din creația lui mcq: contraste precum
om-mașină, natură-tehnologie. Colecția a fost live streamed pe net- dialog consummator-creator.

Căuta provocarea emoțională: cultural anxieties, uncertainties, desires, hopes.

http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/

Introduction

McQueen always started every collection with an idea or a concept for the runway presentation
before the fashions. After the concept, he would have this elaborate sort of storyboard with these
various references from art, from film, from music—his influences from everywhere. There’s a
famous story about how he was watching Friends one day, and Joey was wearing a green sweater,
and Joey’s green sweater inspired an aspect of his collection. So he was such a sponge that
inspiration came from everywhere. The actual creative process in terms of the clothes themselves
were often designed directly on the mannequin during a fitting. So fittings, for McQueen, were
incredibly important.

I think that McQueen saw life cinematically, and I think that that approach to life was something
that you see very clearly on the runway. So his interest in extreme weather conditions was part of
that sort of dramatic view of life. And I think that one of the reasons why he loved nature so much
was because it was so unpredictable. They were spontaneous; it was something that one can never
control, and I think that was always something he liked to show in his collections.

Every collection told a story. When you watched one of McQueen’s collections, you were always
having these feelings of awe or wonder or fear or terror. My personal opinion was that McQueen
was channeling the Sublime through his collections. And certainly the Sublime experience was
something that certainly affected the audience. You were always not sure what to expect when you
went into a McQueen show. And you also didn’t know what you felt when you left a McQueen
show at the same time. You always were left with sort of feelings of confusion, and McQueen
often said that he didn’t care whether you liked his collections or not, as long as you felt something.
And the intensity of his collections came from the fact that it was often very much about his state
of mind at a particular time. For McQueen the runway was primarily a vehicle to express his
imagination. He was very dark. That darkness came from a deep romanticism—the darkest side of
the nineteenth century—and that’s what I always felt when I saw his collections. He was deeply
political as a designer and I think one of the reasons why McQueen’s collections often were so
hard to watch is that they often channeled our cultural anxieties and uncertainties, and that was
very much part of his raison d’être.

McQueen was well known for upending conventional, normative standards of beauty. He would
dress women up in garments that obliterated their features. And certainly the garments that he
made can be interpreted as being misogynistic. I think that he felt as if the clothes he was designing
for women were armor. So in his mind his clothes were very much to do with empowerment.
Fashion wasn’t just about pragmatics; it wasn’t just about wearability. To him, fashion was a
vehicle to convey or express complex ideas and complex concepts, but also could use fashion as a
way to challenge our boundaries of what we think of as clothing and think about in terms of the
requisites or fundamentals of clothing.

The exhibition, organized by The Costume Institute, celebrated the late Alexander McQueen’s
extraordinary contributions to fashion. From his Central Saint Martins postgraduate collection of
1992 to his final runway presentation, which took place after his death in February 2010, Mr.
McQueen challenged and expanded the understanding of fashion beyond utility to a conceptual
expression of culture, politics, and identity. His iconic designs constitute the work of an artist
whose medium of expression was fashion. The exhibition featured approximately one hundred
ensembles and seventy accessories from Mr. McQueen’s prolific nineteen-year career. Drawn
primarily from the Alexander McQueen Archive in London, with some pieces from the Givenchy
Archive in Paris as well as private collections, signature designs including the “bumster” trouser,
the kimono jacket, and the three-point “origami” frockcoat were on view. McQueen’s fashions
often referenced the exaggerated silhouettes of the 1860s, 1880s, 1890s, and 1950s, but his
technical ingenuity always imbued his designs with an innovative sensibility that kept him at the
vanguard.

The exhibition was organized by Andrew Bolton, curator, with the support of Harold Koda, curator
in charge, both of The Costume Institute. Sam Gainsbury and Joseph Bennett, the production
designers for Alexander McQueen’s fashion shows, served as the exhibition’s creative director
and production designer, respectively. All head treatments and masks were designed by Guido.
The Romantic 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.”

—Alexander McQueen

McQueen doggedly promoted freedom of thought and expression and championed the authority of the
imagination. In so doing, he was an exemplar of the Romantic individual, the hero-artist who
staunchly follows the dictates of his inspiration. “What I am trying to bring to fashion is a sort of
originality,” he said. McQueen expressed this originality most fundamentally through his methods of
cutting and construction, which were both innovative and revolutionary. This technical ingenuity
was apparent as early as his graduation collection from the Fashion Design MA course at Central Saint
Martins College of Art and Design in London. Entitled Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims (1992), it
introduced such iconic designs as the three-point “origami” frockcoat. In his first collection after
graduating, entitled Taxi Driver (autumn/winter 1993–94), McQueen launched his “bumsters,” pants
that sat so low on the hips that they revealed the buttocks. Indeed, McQueen was such a confident
designer that his forms and silhouettes, such as the “bumster,” were established from his earliest
collections and remained relatively consistent throughout his career. Referring to his early training on
Savile Row in London, he said, “Everything I do is based on tailoring.” McQueen’s approach to fashion,
however, combined the precision and traditions of tailoring and patternmaking with the spontaneity
and improvisations of draping and dressmaking—an approach that became more refined after his
tenure as creative director of Givenchy in Paris from 1996 to 2001. It is this approach, at once
rigorous and impulsive, disciplined and unconstrained, that underlies McQueen’s singularity and
inimitability.

Featured objects: Coat, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims; “Bumster” Skirt, Highland
Rape; Dress, Plato’s Atlantis; Jacket, Joan; Jacket, It’s a Jungle Out There; Coat, Dante

Romantic Gothic and Cabinet of

Curiosities
“People find my things sometimes aggressive. But I don’t see it as aggressive. I see it as romantic,
dealing with a dark side of personality.”

—Alexander McQueen

One of the defining features of McQueen’s collections is their historicism. While McQueen’s
historical references are far-reaching, he was particularly inspired by the nineteenth century,
especially the Victorian Gothic. “There’s something . . . kind of Edgar Allan Poe, kind of deep and
kind of melancholic about my collections,” McQueen noted. Indeed, the “shadowy fancies” that Poe
writes about in “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) are vividly present in the majority of
McQueen’s collections, most notably Dante (autumn/winter 1996–
97), Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (autumn/winter 2002–3), and the posthumous, unofficially
entitled Angels and Demons (autumn/winter 2010–11). Like the Victorian Gothic, which
combines elements of horror and romance, McQueen’s collections often reflect opposites such
as life and death, lightness and darkness. Indeed, the emotional intensity of his runway
presentations was frequently the consequence of the interplay between dialectical oppositions. The
relationship between victim and aggressor was especially apparent, particularly in his accessories.
He once remarked, “I . . . like the accessory for its sadomasochistic aspect.” This position is
strikingly evident in the gallery “Cabinet of Curiosities,” which focuses on atavistic and fetishistic
paraphernalia produced by McQueen in collaboration with a number of accessory designers,
including the milliners Dai Rees and Philip Treacy and the jewelers Shaun Leane, Erik Halley, and
Sarah Harmarnee.1

Featured objects: Corset, Dante; Ensemble, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious; Ensemble,

autumn/winter 2010; Dress, The Horn of Plenty; Ensemble, Eclect Dissect; “Spine”
Corset, Untitled; “Coiled” Corset, The Overlook; Ensemble, The Hunger; Dress, It’s Only a
Game; Ensemble, No. 13; Dress, No. 13

Romantic Nationalism
“The reason I’m patriotic about Scotland is because I think it’s been dealt a really hard hand. It’s
marketed the world over as . . . haggis . . . bagpipes. But no one ever puts anything back into it.”

—Alexander McQueen

McQueen’s collections were fashioned around elaborate narratives that are profoundly
autobiographical, often reflecting his Scottish heritage. Indeed, when he was asked what his Scottish
roots meant to him, he replied, “Everything.” McQueen’s national pride is most evident in the
collections Highland Rape (autumn/winter 1995–96) and Widows of Culloden (autumn/winter
2006–7). Both explore Scotland’s turbulent political history. Highland Rape was based on the
eighteenth-century Jacobite Risings and the nineteenth-century Highland Clearances, and was
the first collection to introduce McQueen tartan. Shown on semi-naked, blood-spattered models that
staggered down a runway strewn with heather and bracken, the clothes were intended to counter
romantic images of Scotland. In contrast, Widows of Culloden, which was based on the final battle of
the Jacobite Risings, was more wistful, featuring exaggerated silhouettes inspired by the
1880s. McQueen’s message, however, remained defiantly political: “What the British did there was
nothing short of genocide.” Despite these heartfelt declarations of his Scottish national identity,
McQueen felt intensely connected to England, especially London. “London’s where I was brought
up. It’s where my heart is and where I get my inspiration,” he said. His deep interest in the history of
England was most apparent perhaps in The Girl Who Lived in the Tree (autumn/winter 2008–9), a
dreamy quixotic fairy tale inspired by an elm tree in the garden of McQueen’s country home near
Fairlight Cove in East Sussex. Influenced by the British Empire, it was one of McQueen’s most
romantically nationalistic collections, albeit heavily tinged with irony and pastiche.

1
Atavistic= relating to or characterized by reversion to something ancient or ancestral.
Atavic = însușiri ale oamenilor sau animalelor domesticite) primitiv, sălbatic
Atavism = Apariția, la un descendent vegetal sau animal, a unor caractere care nu sunt proprii tipului respectiv, dar
aparțin ascendenților îndepărtați.
Paraphernalia = accesorii
accesorii fetișiste și cu aspecte sălbatice
Featured objects: Dress, Highland Rape; Suit, Highland Rape; Ensemble, Widows of
Culloden; Dress, Widows of Culloden; Ensemble, The Girl Who Lived in the Tree; Ensemble, The Girl
Who Lived in the Tree

Romantic Exoticism
“I want to be honest about the world that we live in, and sometimes my political persuasions come
through in my work. Fashion can be really racist, looking at the clothes of other cultures as costumes.
. . . That’s mundane and it’s old hat. Let’s break down some barriers.”

—Alexander McQueen

McQueen’s romantic sensibilities expanded his imaginary horizons not only temporally but also
geographically. As it had been for Romantic artists and writers, the lure of the exotic was central to his
work. Like his historicism, McQueen’s exoticism was wide ranging—India, China, Africa, and
Turkey all sparked his imagination. Japan was particularly significant to him, both thematically
and stylistically. The kimono, especially, was a garment that he reconfigured endlessly.
Remarking on the direction of his fashions, McQueen said, “My work will be about taking
elements of traditional embroidery, filigree, and craftsmanship from countries all over the
world. I will explore their crafts, patterns, and materials and interpret them in my own
way.” As with many of his themes, however, McQueen’s exoticism was often expressed in
contrasting opposites. That was the case with It’s Only a Game (spring/summer 2005), a
show staged as a chess game inspired by a scene in the film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s
Stone (2001), which pitched the East (Japan) against the West (America). Films often
inspired McQueen, as did contemporary art. VOSS (spring/summer 2001), which featured a
number of exoticized garments, including a coat and a dress appliquéd with roundels in the shape of
chrysanthemums, was inspired by a photograph of Joel-Peter Witkin entitled Sanitarium (1983), which
depicted an obese woman connected via a breathing tube to a stuffed monkey. On McQueen’s
runway, the fetish writer Michelle Olley played the role of the woman. Typical of McQueen’s
collections, VOSS offered a commentary on the politics of appearance, upending conventional
ideals of beauty. For McQueen, the body was a site for contravention, where normalcy was
questioned and the spectacle of marginality was embraced and celebrated.

Featured objects: Ensemble, It’s Only a Game; Ensemble, It’s Only a

Game; Ensemble, VOSS; Ensemble, VOSS; Dress, VOSS

Romantic Primitivism
“I try to push the silhouette. To change the silhouette is to change the thinking of how we look. What
I do is look at ancient African tribes, and the way they dress. The rituals of how they dress. .
. . There’s a lot of tribalism in the collections.”

—Alexander McQueen

Throughout his career, McQueen returned to the theme of primitivism, which drew upon the ideal of
the noble savage living in harmony with the natural world. It was the focus of his first runway
collection after graduating, Nihilism (spring/summer 1994). He said of the collection, “It
was a reaction to designers romanticizing ethnic dressing, like a Masai-inspired dress made of
materials the Masai could never afford.” It famously included a latex dress with locusts, McQueen’s
statement on famine. Many of the pieces were coated with mud, a conceit the designer repeated
in Eshu (autumn/winter 2000–2001), a collection inspired by the well-known deity in the Yoruba
religion. The clothes, including a coat of black synthetic hair and a dress of black horsehair
embroidered with yellow glass beads, came close to fetishizing materials. This fetishization also
occurred in It’s a Jungle Out There (autumn/winter 1997–98), which was inspired by the Thomson’s
gazelle. The collection was a meditation on the dynamics of power—in particular, the
relationship between predator and prey. Indeed, McQueen’s reflections on primitivism were
frequently represented in paradoxical combinations, contrasting “modern” and “primitive,” “civilized”
and “uncivilized.” The storyline of Irere (spring/summer 2003) involved a shipwreck at sea and was
peopled with pirates, conquistadors, and Amazonian Indians. Typically, McQueen’s narrative
glorified the state of nature and tipped the moral balance in favor of the “natural man” or
“nature’s gentleman” unfettered by the artificial constructs of civilization.

Featured objects: Coat, Eshu; Dress, Eshu; Ensemble, Eshu; Bodysuit, It’s a Jungle Out
There; Ensemble, It’s a Jungle Out There; “Oyster” Dress, Irere

Romantic Naturalism
“I have always loved the mechanics of nature and to a greater or lesser extent my work is always
informed by that.”

—Alexander McQueen

Nature was the greatest, or at least the most enduring, influence upon McQueen. It was also a
central theme, if not the central theme, of Romanticism. Many artists of the Romantic
movement presented nature itself as a work of art. McQueen both shared and promoted this
view in his collections, which often included fashions that took their forms and raw materials from the
natural world. For McQueen, as it was for the Romantics, nature was also a locus for ideas and
concepts. That is most clearly reflected in Plato’s Atlantis (spring/summer 2010), the last fully
realized collection the designer presented before his death in February 2010. Inspired by Charles
Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), it presented a narrative that centered not on the
evolution of humankind but on its devolution. The collection was streamed live on Nick
Knight’s SHOWstudio.com in an attempt to make fashion into an interactive dialogue between creator
and consumer. For the Romantics, nature was the primary vehicle for the Sublime—starry
skies, stormy seas, turbulent waterfalls, vertiginous mountains. In Plato’s Atlantis, the Sublime of
nature was paralleled and supplanted by that of technology—the extreme space-time compressions
produced by the Internet. It was a powerful evocation of the Sublime and its coincident expression of
the Romantic and the postmodern. At the same time, it was a potent vision of the future of fashion
that reflected McQueen’s sweeping imagination.

Featured objects: Dress, Plato’s Atlantis; “Jellyfish” Ensemble, Plato’s Atlantis; Dress, Widows of
Culloden; Dress, Sarabande; Dress, Widows of Culloden; Dress, Sarabande
Expoziția a fost repusă în scenă la V&A în 2015

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-alexander-mcqueen-savage-beauty/about-the-
exhibition/