A Tribute to Alexander McQueen
In lieu of posting the usual ‘weekly fashion finds’, we’d like to pay tribute to Alexander McQueen, whose designs won him the British Designer of the Year award in 1996, 1997, 2001, and 2003.
Pictured left is the ‘Oyster’ dress from the Spring 2003 collection, which is now on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
From the Met’s blog: “The premise of Alexander McQueen’s spring/summer 2003 presentation was of a shipwreck at sea and a consequent landfall in the Amazon. Critics lauded McQueen for his designs because they retained the theatrical and transporting impact of the presentation but also yielded wearable and desirable fashions. The ‘Oyster’ dress, while dramatic in its sweep and red-carpet authority, benefits even further by close examination. As Women’s Wear Daily noted, ‘Fabulous though this presentation was, the clothes are better up close, revealing a mind-boggling degree of creativity and work.’ Attached to a beautifully fitted and boned corset, the voluminous skirt is comprised of hundreds of graduated layers of ivory organza. Like a mille-feuille pastry, each layer both conforms to and detaches itself from every other layer of silk. With a post-modernist’s irony and deconstructivist’s preference for worn effects, the silk is left with an unfinished, raw, cut edge. Elsewhere on the gown, silk chiffon is conscientiously pieced and applied to create a slightly matte surface to the bodice and left unfinished as it extends at the shoulders to curdle along its edges like kelp or skin after an exfoliating burn.”
The Oyster dress is only one of several stunning designs by McQueen, who recently passed away on February 11, 2010.
He is also known for his zany ensembles for music artists such as Björk and Lady Gaga.
In memoriam of McQueen, Björk wrote:
“i would like to thank you for all your inspiration
it was so important to me to get to work with you and your team
a real mashup of fertile minds
it was vital to my development
i’m grateful”
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