I have never understood British designer Alexander McQueen’s approach to fashion. Certainly he’s creative and inspired. I just don’t get him.
A model wears a creation by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen as part of his Fall-Winter 2009-2010 ready-to-wear collection, Paris, Tuesday, March 10, 2009. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) ORG XMIT: XCE136
His early runway collections triggered his reputation for controversy and shock tactics. He’s known for his lavish, unconventional runway shows. Isaac Mizrahi and Bob Mackie both approached New York runway shows as theatrical productions, and I got that, and loved it, but McQueen just seems so out there. Maybe it would be easier to understand if I saw his shows in person, instead of just looking at the pictures.
McQueen must be doing something right, though. He was one of the youngest designers to be named British Designer of the Year, which he won four times between 1996 and 2003. He was named International Designer of the Year at the Council of Fashion Designer Awards in 200. He has had many collaborations, the most recent with Target. His MCQ collection will be at the Target store at 13924 N Pennsylvania through April 14.
Do not confuse the Target collection with what he presents on the runway. Here’s what the Associated Press fashion writer has to say about Alexander McQueen’s collection for fall that was shown in Paris:
A dress made entirely from slick black feathers, with oversized bouffant sleeves sculpted to suggest a swan hurtling into flight. A cocktail dress with a bust made of a jumble of leather straps and a full skirt of tight looping ruffles with a garbage-bag black sheen.
These were pieces that cried out to be worn — with extravagance and wild abandon — but probably belonged more in a museum than in a closet. It was fashion as art — wearable art to be lusted after.
Working with a palette of graphic black, red and white, the McQueen took tactful staples like the skirt suit and the strapless cocktail dress and pushed them beyond the boundaries of politeness.
He nipped the New Look suit’s wasp-waist even further, inflated its square shoulders and fluffed up the crinoline skirts. He padded the cascading train of a strapless evening gown until its skirts turned into a sort of bean bag that the model struggled to shuffle around the runway.
The black and white houndstooth checks that opened the show gave way to a red and black M.C. Escher-inspired print of ducks in flight that morph into houndstooth. McQueen also heaped on metalwork-studded hardware and feathers.
Hats made from open umbrellas, lampshades or a sculpture of found objects wrapped in clear plastic film topped off the looks.
Models, their faces covered in white and their mouths an oversized smear of red lipstick, picked their way around a huge pile of stylized rubbish in the middle of the catwalk and stopping in front of the photographers, leered.
It was beauty transformed into ugliness and then back into beauty again.
Models wear creations by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen as part of his Fall/Winter 2009-2010 ready-to-wear collection in Paris, Tuesday, March 10, 2009. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) ORG XMIT: THC104
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