Nicolas Ghesquiere Leaves Balenciaga

I felt like I was shot in the stomach when I read this earlier today. I was like...whaaauuuuut...I mean if I was expecting major fashion news I wouldn't be surprised to see something like 'Lagerfeld Dead. Designer slips in bath' or maybe 'Formichetti dumped by Mugler in non-shock horror'.

I know that everyone is saying this right now but I need to chime in too. Who in Egyptofunk hell is going to replace him? Alberta Ferretti? This is like Galliano and Dior where the designer has had such an incredible impact on the blueprint of the brand that the entire image has to be stripped back and re-started. For Balenciaga it's the undoing of 15 years of, Jesus Christ, real fashion.

So who will replace him? Who's unemployed right now? Hannah MacGibbon? Cedric Charlier? Nicolas should take a break, go horseback riding or scuba diving, travel a bit, get a tattoo, take drugs then come back and ghost design for Dress Barn.

*Cries in fashion*

RIP Corinne Day

1965-2010
Produced some of the most iconic images of the 90's

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

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.

SO MUCH PAIN, SO MUCH BEAUTY