On Monday, I stopped by Manhattan's Met Museum to watch out this year's much-talked-about Costume Institute exhibit, "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty." And, fittingly, after wandering through the series of rooms lined with the late designer's greatest hits and several more obscure offerings, I was and yet am really at a release for words.
I used the audio guide to meet in some for me.
McQueen's teacher at Central St. Martin's described his final school project, a pink coat called "Jack the Ripper," explaining that evening as a student, his turn always had a report to tell. Milliner Philip Treacy recalled a "Bird Hat" he formerly made for McQueen out of pieces of woods he plant in a forest. While look for materials, he was approached by a guy who thought he was cruising (read: trying to pluck up men), an anecdote that Alexander apparently found to be hysterical at the time.
One voice recounted hanging Kate Moss on wires to take her for the hologram that over the 2006 "Widows of Culloden" show, in the aftermath of her tabloid scandal. Another rung of McQueen's obsession with the kimono. Even passersby were making apt observations, like, "His stuff is certainly shocking, but it's more that it's form fitting.there's no skin showing," and, "You know, his 'Highland Rape' collection wasn't even some women, it was about England and Scotland."
Just the thought that each man had a game behind it was as overpowering as the items themselves - intricate embroidery, feathered frocks, fresh flowers, a neckpiece made from what appeared to be turkeys' heads and gullets, the infamous Armadillo shoes, a crimson breastplate that reached over the mannequin's face with a set for the eyes cut out.
McQueen once remarked, "I find beauty in the grotesque. Like most artists, I hold to pull people to see at things."
With this exhibit, that's no longer the case.
"Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" runs through July 31 at the Met. For a blurry preview, courtesy of my iPhone, see below.
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