A few weeks ago, I was invited, along with a few other bloggers from my university, to attend the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty retrospective at the Victoria and Albert museum (V&A).
The collection that was chosen for display, and the constructed galleries in which it is presented, are nothing short of fantastic. It is, above all, an art installation of high calibre. The fashion is representative of McQueen’s finest haute couture creations, but it also shows some of his most avant-garde.
The admission price is a little steep (from £17.50), but if you’re interested in fashion, you’ll probably feel that it’s worth the cost. Having said that, it does have a dark side, and as a vegan, I found it difficult to take in at times.
V&A (in partnership with Swarovski) spared no expense in creating a home in the museum for the collection. At least eight rooms were built to house chosen pieces from McQueen’s major collections over the years. Each room was designed to reflect the feel of the pieces in it, and each creates a different experience for the viewer.
The show begins with McQueen’s early days, including a number of exquisitely constructed pieces from his autumn/winter 1995-96 Highland Rape collection.1 The pieces are as modern today as they were when they were first introduced. They create a strong sense of longing for a finely tailored suit, even while they leave you feeling uneasy, as though even the most innocuous pieces have whispered in your ear the disturbing tale to which the collection bears witness.
McQueen was an enigmatic designer. Born and raised in East London, the son of a cab driver, he left school at 15 to work as a tailor’s apprentice on Savile Row. Having learned the rules well, he proceeded to enrol in the Fashion MA at Central Saint Martins, a very prestigious program. It was there that McQueen became a true designer, of unique voice and perspective. That voice was like no other in fashion—and it remains unique today. But its roots were clearly derived outside the fashion world.
McQueen took his influence from several places: nature, foreign culture (particularly the fashion and art of the Far East), and London street fashion. McQueen also had a dark obsession with historical tales, and particularly those of Victorian London. He was said to have likened his work to Edgar Allen Poe’s, but insisted that it came from a darkly “romantic” place. Of course, there was another personality that influenced life in Victorian East London (Jack the Ripper), and it’s difficult not to draw parallels to that influence, too.
McQueen preferred natural materials, and incorporated a lot of animal products into his collections. As a vegan, I was really struck by the impact of that choice, as I meandered through the collection compiled by V&A. I made an effort to catalogue in my mind what elements McQueen had used, and the extent to which he used them. I think it’s fair to say that there were only a handful of pieces that weren’t made up of some sort of animal material(s).
Many of the represented collections highlighted animal parts. One collection (The Horn of Plenty, autumn/winter 2009-10)2 was made up of clothing constructed almost entirely of feathers, while another (It’s a Jungle Out There, autumn/winter 1997-87) incorporated pony skin, small taxidermy crocodile skulls,3 and large impala horns.4 Perhaps most disturbing was Ensemble (No. 13, spring/summer 1999)5 made to be worn by Paralympic athlete Aimee Mullins. McQueen hand made beautifully carved wooden legs for Mullins to wear in his show, and then put her in moulded corset of crudely sewn leather, which gave the impression of something that might have been constructed by Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, were he a skilled tailor.
For me, walking through the show left me with the sense that I’d been listening to a story I’d heard before. After a bit of thinking, I realized that the déjà vu I’d experienced harkened back to an article I’d read a number of years before, about a Peruvian serial killer who murdered young women in France in 1999-2000 (believed to be now-deceased surgeon Andres Palomino-Barrios). The murderer was obsessed with Salvador Dali, so he killed his young female victims near a train station in France in which Dali was known to have had a salacious interest. The murderer then dismembered his victims and posed them in a manner that mimicked some of Dali’s best-known surrealist portraits.6
When I realized that this was the connection I had drawn to V&A’s McQueen retrospective, I began to think about what could have caused this strong of a reaction in me. In retrospect, I believe that it was due to several factors. First, McQueen intended to illicit strong reactions. People who knew him have said that he had a fascination with the predator-prey relationship,7 which is something that is hard to portray subtly. Second, McQueen frequently designed – or at least showed – his pieces with the model’s face (and often her entire head) covered. So there was often a feeling of victimization portrayed in his shows. These head pieces are part of the retrospective presentation.
It’s interesting that one of the first McQueen quotes you see in the retrospective is at the start of the Highland Rape collection, where he said, “I want to empower women….I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.” Juxtaposed with a collection that centres on a tale of rape, it’s difficult to see who should be afraid of whom. Finally, I have to admit that, as a vegan, the connection to Palomino-Barrios may have come simply from my revulsion to the array of animal parts on display in the show.
Despite my visceral reaction to the show, I was impressed by the craftsmanship demonstrated in McQueen’s pieces. I struggled through a mix of appreciation for his design and tailoring skills, and disgust with his fabric choices and apparent message(s); but in the end, I would recommend attending the show even if you share my distaste for the macabre aspects of his work. Vegans should continue to face the reality of what is happening in the world of fashion, if we are to be effective advocates. Further, we should be able to appreciate something done well with animal products, so that we can do those things even better without them. At the very least, the V&A should be applauded for portraying haute couture for what it is: art. I look forward to a time when we can enjoy a retrospective of similar quality on a vegan designer. Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty runs through 2 August at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
V&A’s Alexander McQueen Retrospective runs from 14 March-2 August, 2015. Tickets can be purchased here.
Some of the pieces highlighted in the McQueen retrospective can be seen on the Metropolitan Museum of Art blog. You can get a feel for the retrospective’s galleries on the Victoria & Albert Museum website.
1. http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/tag/highland-rape/
2. http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/dress-horn-of-plenty/
3. http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/bodysuit-its-a-jungle-out-there/
4. http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/ensemble-its-a-jungle-out-there/
5. http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/ensemble-no-13/
6. http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/09/features11.g23
7. http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/feb/10/alexander-mcqueen-into-the-light
Read this post and other stories on Mary’s personal blog
Latest posts by merolle (see all)
- Hootenanny in the Highlands - September 1, 2015
- The Caged Birds of London: A Brief History of the Club Row Live Animal Market - July 1, 2015
- A Vegan Take on the V&A’s Alexander McQueen Retrospective - June 25, 2015