There are many adjectives I could use to describe the final collection by Alexander McQueen but they all sound so hokey and meaningless. Haunting, beautiful, tortured etc.
The show itself was brief at only 16 looks but it was the essence and distillation of a genius who had so much to say and I feel fortunate to have seen anything at all.
There were digital prints which had been a fascination of McQueen's only this time instead of scales and moss it was Byzantine paintings and Grinling Gibbons sculpture. The way in which they were draped also had hints of his spring show but this time it felt more controlled. It was ghostly and eeire but the rich Rococo embroideries picked out in gold added strength because the McQueen woman has always had a spine no matter how romantic and frothy a gown may get.
The digital prints of angel wings that were meticulously positioned on the backs of some dresses were echoed with real feathers in the underlay of one dress and the final piece was a beautifully fitted coat, smothered in gold feathers with a flood of embroidered tulle pouring from beaneath.
When someone dies there are always these heartfelt outpourings of emotion that often paint a gilded portrait of that person and you can't help but think 'that's utter bullshit! Mary was never generous, John was never a gentle soul'. I never knew McQueen and I'll make no blind statements about who he truly was but I will say this: There will never be another designer like him. The agony, the spectacle, the beauty and the emotion.
The show itself was brief at only 16 looks but it was the essence and distillation of a genius who had so much to say and I feel fortunate to have seen anything at all.
There were digital prints which had been a fascination of McQueen's only this time instead of scales and moss it was Byzantine paintings and Grinling Gibbons sculpture. The way in which they were draped also had hints of his spring show but this time it felt more controlled. It was ghostly and eeire but the rich Rococo embroideries picked out in gold added strength because the McQueen woman has always had a spine no matter how romantic and frothy a gown may get.
The digital prints of angel wings that were meticulously positioned on the backs of some dresses were echoed with real feathers in the underlay of one dress and the final piece was a beautifully fitted coat, smothered in gold feathers with a flood of embroidered tulle pouring from beaneath.
When someone dies there are always these heartfelt outpourings of emotion that often paint a gilded portrait of that person and you can't help but think 'that's utter bullshit! Mary was never generous, John was never a gentle soul'. I never knew McQueen and I'll make no blind statements about who he truly was but I will say this: There will never be another designer like him. The agony, the spectacle, the beauty and the emotion.
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