A Complex, Rare Vision
I’m not what some would call an avid fashion consumer and I refuse to follow the latest fashion trend just for the sake of being up to date or “cool”. I’m choosing what represents me whether it’s 2011, 60s or 90s and I believe a well cut black dress can be timeless. Different materials, patterns with transparencies or intricate elements can win me over because it involves an attention to details and a vision about how to transform/present/change women’ bodies. Nevertheless I’m fascinated with art and people who seek to be original and inventive.
Staying at the line to get tickets for “Savage Beauty” Alexander McQueen‘s exhibition at MET I was telling this old lady near me how it’s sad that people get really enamored with an artist after its death and how come we don’t see a similar crazy interest over a painting exhibition for instance. At that point I was a little bit familiar with McQueen’s work but looking back it was just a quick glimpse into his world.
McQueen was not just a huge talented fashion designer he was a complex artist and innovator, a smart cultivated creature and a sensitive and humble human being. Reading some of his quotes it feels like you attend an intense class swallowing essential things that sometimes are skipped even in prestigious art colleges or an entire existence on Earth. McQueen poured his love, interest and knowledge of history, nationalism, various cultures, soul, fear, poetry, film into his garments making them unique in every way. Each collection has a name that represents a theme that it’s explored with passion exposing the roots and combining it with surprising elements and personal interpretation. It’s like a poem but actually you’re driving through “100 years of Solitude” …
What McQueen created is art at its best and some of his dresses are so surreal and perfect you can’t stop staring at them. It’s a celebration of beauty in all forms and actually he teaches us to discover beauty in the most unexpected places. What we usually perceive as mundane or repulsive can be stripped to core and shown in a way that’s truly beautiful. But a great quality of McQueen art is its blunt honesty and extreme personal touch whether that means diving into dark demons or embrace playfulness or usual taboos.
McQueen forces us to open our minds, expand our horizon, swim inside our heart, accept our nightmares, use our imagination and take risks. His broad knowledge added complexity to his craft and while you admire mesmerized his creations you wanna read all those books that had a relevant impact on him, refining his approach on art. His art is full of emotion, originality, wisdom and inspires one greatly. Experiencing it enriched me in such a deep way and the hours I’ve waited in line were totally worth it. “Savage Beauty” it’s one of the best art exhibitions I’ve seen in my life.
Before daring to change anything significant in clothes McQueen learned to be a perfect and inventive tailor adapting to any situation. Once he mastered that he jumped from using leather or balsa wood to velvet with complicate manual embroidery to organza silk, tulle, lace. McQueen made dresses out of dead flowers, shells, exotic feathers playing with a dress from XIV century and expressing his own political views&opinions and then transporting us in the dark Victorian goth period and then into a fusion of Japanese art and Western consumption culture. His accessories are mind blowing they feel like contemporary magic props/sculptures that make you push yourself outside the usual barriers. Step out of the box now.