CQ visits ‘Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty’
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Like numerous Americans of my generation, I came to be a fan of Alexander McQueen through his operate for Givenchy in the late ’90s. I had been following the designer extended before his death – and then the royal wedding gown developed by his successor Sarah Burton – manufactured him a household name. So I have noticed many a retrospective at numerous stages of his profession. My interest reached a fever pitch with his participation in the Anglomania exhibit at the Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2006. None of this ready me for “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” now on view at The Costume Institute.
The first pieces you are confronted with in the dark, intense exhibit space are from the Spring 2001 Voss collection, a collection really focused on beauty and possibly less sinister than considerably of McQueen’s work. A red ostrich-feather dress and a sculptural white razor clam shell piece give the viewer an notion of the globe-class craftsmanship they are about to witness at arm’s length.
