NEW YORK CITY, August 19, 2011—It’s been a little over two weeks since Alexander McQueen’s Savage Beauty tribute exhibit closed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, yet the effects the exhibit created still reverberate through the art and fashion scenes in New York City, transcending beyond the limits of the well curated space inside the museum. 

According to the MET, with a total of 661,509 visitors, the McQueen’s exhibit ranked as the eight most visited exhibition in the entire 141 years of history of the museum. This compares to exhibits like The Mona Lisa (1963), Picasso (2010), and Tutankhamen (1987).

The McQueen exhibit is the most visited show ever organized by The Costume Institute since it joined the MET in 1946.

In addition to the impressive numbers, the show managed to defy and cross its main demographic, being fashion, and tap into the curiosity of young, old, college boys, couples, families, tourists, and punk rockers, among others.

The typical two-hour wait time in line paled in comparison to the six-hour wait time many of us did during the last two days of the exhibition in our attempt to see what many described as “an artistic show that could not be missed.”

Contrasted to the museum’s austere wings, Andrew Bolton’s excellently curated show had the power to suck you into a wormhole that took you inside the beautifully sick mind of the late Alexander McQueen (b. 03/17/1969-d.02/11/2010).  The rooms were full of surrealist visuals and sounds that were deeply interconnected with the pieces and garments they were holding, almost like if they always belonged in these spaces and were solely designed to be art.

 

Inside you could see how fabric stopped being just a means of clothing and became pure art, carefully crafted and sculpted by the visionary talent McQueen had.  To add to the drama already created by each piece, all the models’ heads were outfitted in masks and headpieces that carried the dark and even sadomasochistic expression McQueen was known for.

Since the beginning of his career, McQueen’s shows were true spectacles and artistic in the way they conveyed a message through fabric and its interaction with the female body in movement.  His interest was in using fashion as a platform to explore various questions of politics, identity, socioeconomics, and even death. 

Many of his inspirations were derived from history’s most tragic female figures – exploring the tension behind their strength and fragility with the intention of marrying them into one, and finally reinterpreting them in his pieces.  It was McQueen’s desire to use fashion as a means of expression that provoked people into deeper thoughts what set him apart from the rest of his contemporary fashion peers.

The exhibit started with some of his earliest pieces of his post-graduate collection of 1992 and then continued into his time as the creative director of Givenchy, and culminated with several of his collections created under his label.  Over 100 garments and 70 accessories showed the meticulous craftsmanship and the evolution of rich, though provoking concepts that brought them to life.

Collections like Highland Rape (autumn/winter 1995/96) gave you a peek of McQueen’s disturbing mind with the ripped dresses, broken textiles, and unconventional material combinations; all complemented with the exhibit’s dark environment, strange models’ poses, and ominous background sounds.

 Throughout the exhibit you could see his haute couture being highly contrasted and beautifully matched; creating a marriage of materials and shapes that challenge the archetypical notions of beauty and hideous.  McQueen’s quotes along the walls made his intention clear, “Beauty can come from the strangest of places, even the most disgusting of places”, “I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists.  I have to force people to look at things.”

Some of his other collections showcased were Widows of Culloden (autumn/winter 2006/2007), which emphasizes his obsessions with Scottish nationalism; and Plato’s Atlantis (spring/summer 2010), his Darwin-inspired collection that explores nature and primitivism.

While the exhibition is retrospective, it is not melancholic.  It explored McQueen’s vision and exposed through his artistic pieces the fragility hidden behind his genius.  This sensorial journey served as inspiration to many, showing the power of the uncommon, the possibilities of things, and the beauty behind the ugly.  

As Alexander McQueen himself said, “I’m going to take you on journeys you’ve never dreamed possible.” 

I believe he did.

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For more images and details of the dresses construction and the artists words about his creations visit Alexander McQueen - Savage Beauty 

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