Thursday, October 09, 2014
Savage Beauty At The V&A Preview
Thursday, October 09, 2014Pictures: Courtesy of the V&A Today I attended the preview of McQueen's Savage Beauty retrospective opening at the V&A M...
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| Pictures: Courtesy of the V&A |
Today I attended the preview of McQueen's Savage Beauty retrospective opening at the V&A Museum, in partnership with Swarovski and supported by American Express and MAC. The exhibition will be the biggest showcase of a designer's work ever.
The V&A is a fitting venue for this exciting exhibition as Martin Roth, Director of the V&A, confirmed how McQueen "while studying at Central Saint Martins (CSM) spent many many hours in the V&A, in the galleries and in the archives and in the storage." McQueen said of the V&A in his own words; "The collections at the V&A never fail to intrigue and inspire me. The nation is privileged to have access to such a resource..it's the sort of place I'd like to be shut-in overnight." Savage Beauty at the V&A is a homecoming in its purest form.
The exhibition, which completely sold out in its three month run at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, will open on 14th March 2015 and has already sold 16,000 tickets. If you haven't already booked tickets, to avoid disappointment. I advise you to buy as soon as you can by clicking here)
The exhibition will be presented in ten sections, the first an addition to the original exhibition, focuses on McQueen's London roots. Lee Alexander McQueen was born and raised in London. He learnt his tailoring skills on Savile Row and based his first collection on the city, while studying for his master's degree in Fashion Design at CSM.
The Details
It will be a third larger than the original exhibition, with 30 additional garments, including pieces lent by the Isabella Blow Foundation and the House of Givenchy.
The show’s centrepiece is entitled 'The Cabinet of Curiosities' where more than 100 garments and accessories will be presented in a double-height gallery, showcasing the collaborations with milliner Philip Treacy and jeweller Shaun Leane. The exhibits will be set against screens showing catwalk footage from McQueen's famously theatrical catwalk shows.
One of my favourite sections is an exhibit devoted to recreating the spectacular 'Pepper's Ghost' which formed an unforgettable finale to the 'Widows of Culloden' collection from AW06. Using nineteenth century technology, a spectral version of London’s supermodel, Kate Moss, will appear nearly life size.
View my photos from the preview on instagram.
The finale of the exhibition is 'Plato's Atlantis' the Spring Summer 2010 collection, remembered most importantly as the last collection McQueen was to see finished. To close this morning's presentation we were invited to watch the finale of this runway show, held in Paris on October 6th 2009. As I sat watching his limitless creativity flowing through the collection and the models walking in the renowned "armadillos", which quite literally staggered me when I saw them in reality five years ago, I felt a sense of contentment that after all of the campaigning, Savage Beauty was happening; but I also felt we were cheated that his lifetime was cut off too soon. As Claire Wilcox, Curator of Savage Beauty at the V&A, said; "Plato's Atlantis was widely considered his greatest achievement but who knows what McQueen would possibly have amazed us all with next".
