Step inside the Alexander McQueen exhibition
The V&A opened the doors to its long-awaited Alexander McQueen exhibition today and GLAMOUR was among the first to step inside.
This isn't just a fashion display, without using a M&S-style slogan - this is more than clothes; it's art. As veteran fashion journalist Colin McDowell once said, you could have thrown McQueen in any high cultural arena and he would have thrived, using his tragically troubled, yet brilliant, mind to shock, delight and inspire. He could have been a great architect, theatre designer or artist. It just happened to end up working with clothes - and, as we all know, fashion is all the luckier for it.
Being inside the exhibition feels like being underground, or at least in the most darkened, hallowed of museums. The wooden panelling, the gold interior detailing and the often low ceilings create a sense of drama. Couple that with an opera soundtrack, mixed with haunting animal noises, and it was nothing short of otherworldly. In one room, the walls were lined with old bones and the ceiling was lit with a porthole showing a model languidly swimming; mannequins stood in caves. It felt like being in a haunting underwater kingdom.
Another room paid homage to McQueen's fascination with his Scottish roots - tartan, lace and feathered ensembles stood proudly on plinths, as if to replicate the designer's pride at his heritage. At the end of the room was a scarlet caped creation with imposing horns - a feature McQueen often played with.
Next came the Cabinet of Curiosities, which sounds small, but was a towering double-height room with layer upon layer of McQueen creations piled on top of other in alcoves. In the middle stood one of his most famous of looks - the S/S 1998 dress worn by Shalom Harlow on a catwalk turntable while being sprayed by industrial robots. Here, it rotated while guests stared. Screens bore footage from McQueen's legendary catwalk shows. It was overwhelming in terms of grandeur, skill and scale - the scale of the set, as much as the scale of McQueen's ideas. It seems impossible that so much came out of one man. There were horn hats, bubble wrap hats, silver mouthpieces, towering heels, brass hoop earrings, corsets created from intricately carved metal roses, as well as dresses made entirely from feathers and others purely from shells.
The highlight of the exhibition, for us, was the Kate Moss hologram, from his A/W 2006 film. Moss floats like an ethereal nymph around an empty glass pyramid; layers of tulle wafting around her. It's like watching Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, magical, haunting and disquieting. Moss becomes smaller and smaller until she resembles a firefly, before eventually evaporating completely.
Knowing what we do about McQueen's dark mind makes the exhibition all the more poignant; his fascination with death and decay carried tragic weight. He pushed creativity and imagination more than most of us can possibly phantom.
If you see one exhibition this year make it the V&A's Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. You don't need to be into fashion to appreciate this - anyone with eyes will be spellbound by his work and legacy.
But you don't have to go by our word, join the thousands who have already bought a ticket and see if for yourself.
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Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, in partnership with Swarovski, supported by American Express, with thanks to Mac cosmetics and made possible with the co-operation with Alexander McQueen, runs from 14 March until 2 August.
