100 selected dresses from the late Alexander McQueen will be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The exhibit runs from May 4th to July 31st & will feature garments from his 18 highly acclaimed years as a designer. I may add that I'm not much of a fashionista. The fashion industry changes taste & trends too quickly, that regular people find it too exhausting to keep up. Plus, the industry can often be a very shallow & pretentious.
Still, I'm a huge fan of Alexander McQueen. He took the straight-forward runway & created an event out of it. He often shocked & awed the audience not with just his experimental outfits, but with the set-up of his runway shows. Some shows included ice-skating, a carousel, or models acting as chess pieces. He wasn't afraid to be expressive with technology, also, as he had machines spray paint over a white, linen dress or featured a life-sized hologram of Kate Moss floating, which became a ghostly study in the movement of the garment.
Even though these expositions could of had the potential to overpower the clothing, the shows were extravagant & exciting because the cloths were. McQueen drew inspiration from many cultures & eras. There was everything from Russian royalty, to British Victorian, to 1950's sci-fi. He created elaborate headdress that included paper butterflies, model airplanes, or trash. He also set wearable, everyday clothing trends like the "bumster," which set the trend for low-rise jeans, or the kimono jacket.
Here at the JCBA, we believe that narrative comes in many forms, & McQueen was a master storyteller in his medium. This comes from the combination of his stylized clothes & the performance of his exhibits. He sew stories that were often romantic, futuristic, & terrifying. This exhibit is a well deserved honored for McQueen & I wish I was making a trip to N.Y.
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