Throughout history, an individual has emerges on occasion with extraordinary talent; visionaries as it were, whose ability to see beyond revolutionises and inspires the medium upon which they traverse- shifting the very perimeters of modern culture.
McQueen not only produced beautifully crafted designs but most importantly so, never failed to infuse with a breath of creative, intellectual underpinning. His collections were inspired by narrative, history, heritage and philosophy, with a reference to the duality ‘between life and death, happiness and sadness, good and evil’; aspects so poignant to humanity. He has become an immortalised entity, a godlike presence within the fashion world, much like the characters in history he so wondrously explored.
Much like an immortalised Da Vinci painting or grand Renaissance altarpiece, his work stirs something deep within when witnessed in person. In a way that fashion had never quite reached prior to his arrival, each collection feels as though one is looking into windows of his soul, exploring philosophical concepts through a pastiche of history; hidden within the seams of exquisite tailoring and theatrical grandiose.
Every detail is meticulously researched, for example, the purple corset in his ‘Dante’ collection (the author of ‘Divine Comedy, an allegorical vision of the afterlife in the 14th century) it’s soft purple tone deliberately selected as the colour of victorian half mourning. In his SS07 collection ‘Sarabande’, he featured a dress made of real flowers, their petals falling to the floor as their purpose has come to an end, much like fashion towards the end of each season and more philosophically, the transience of life itself- exploring the parallels of dark romanticism and his ‘romantic schizophrenic’ outlook.
McQueen also referenced the mundane, illustrated in his hyper theatrical SS01 ‘VOSS’ show featuring a razor-clam shell dress, the shells stumbled upon by McQueen himself along a beach in Norfolk. In ’The Girl Who Lived in a Tree’, the spectacular set centred upon a large twisted tree inspired by a 600 year old elm tree in the garden of his East Sussex home. In response to an interview question, his creative stimuli derives ‘from Degas and Monet and my sister in Dagenham’.
Whispers of homecoming echo amongst the fashion press for ‘Savage Beauty’; the retrospective originated by the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, following the entire breadth his illustrious career; from meteoric rise to melancholic end. This is without a doubt, the exhibition of the year.
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