Gain Access Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty Written And Illustrated By Sølve Sundsbø Accessible In Digital Version
know basically nothing about fashion, I do know, though, that this book pulls off something kind of extraordinary: convincing me not only that McQueen deserved a posthumous retrospective at the Met I was never much in doubt on that score but also that McQueen was as pure and complete an artist as ever lived.
He's Miles Davis. He's Van Gogh. McQueen was everything an artist should be: endlessly innovative, aware of the past and concerned for the future, literate, tireless, deeply invested in the act of making with one's hands.
His work is personal, born out of his own passions, sexuality, nationality, tragedy, It transcends fashion. You could give this book to young writers in lieu of Letters to a Young Poet, Gorgeous. Not a lot of insight in to the individual, but enough info to keep me intrigued with his work, Photography is beautiful. This is a great book for any coffee table, This book is perfect.
Alexander McQueen when someone pushes themselves to their maximum potential, they produce great things, I just wonder what the cost was, Yes, he killed himself, but what actually contributed to his suicide, and if it was the pressures of his very high pressured responsibility, was it worth it He produced perfect work.
I'm not saying At what cost because I don't know his circumstances, and maybe the stress of his empire wasn't what drove him to suicide.
No matter how I try to express my concern over the mystification of the tragic genius, the only way to end this is to say, What a shame.
We we given so much, but we didn't get to see everything, I loved the museum exhibit so I wanted to read this, There are some beautiful photos of his work, but not much to read about McQueens life, I wish there were multiple volumes showing more of his work and revealing more of his personal life, First saw this book when it came through the library as a reserve going to someone else, Thought it looked really weird, Then I read review in Time and decided to check it out myself, While I will never, ever understand 'artist' speak, I did look at the pictures and A McQ's designs, and had a better appreciation for what he did.
If you get past some of the outrageousness, and the doubletalk behind it, you get to understand why his designs can be considered as art.
Some are breathtaking. Some are just odd. If you werent lucky enough to experience Savage Beauty, the exhibition, firsthand, you can still indulge in the visionary delight of the late designer Alexander McQueens work in this stunning hardback.
Published to coincide with the exhibition the title opens with a preface from Andrew Bolton, curator of The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and an introduction by Susannah Frankel, Fashion Editor with The Independent newspaper and friend of McQueen.
After this, the book is divided into sections such as The Romantic Mind, Romantic Primitivism and Cabinet of Curiosities, mirroring the layout of the exhibition.
Each section includes striking fullpage images of his work jackets, dresses, wraps, coats, jumpsuits, and trousers along with more atmospheric ensembles and accompanied by quotes from McQueen.
Materials used include animal bones, shells, and feathers, “, . . a play on animal and man, They are both gross and very much the same, ”
Careful editing means the result offers a powerful insight into the darker side of the designers mind, Also included is a pretty personal interview with Sarah Burton, current Creative Director of Alexander McQueen and the lady behind Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middletons wedding dress, about the design process, McQueens influences and what it was like to work with a creative powerhouse.
My collections have always been autobiographical,This book is incredibly stunning, Amazed by how intuitively precise McQueen was with his work, I find the stills in this book even more breathtaking, It was a similar awing experience to glimpse one of his designs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue, several days ago,
I want to empower women,His designs were all about the curves and angles of the fabric on a womans body, front frills and flaps, and everything he did was multidimensional: vividlyD with deep stories and intense feelings lurking.
I want people to be afraid of the women I dress,
In Highland Rape, the story was about Englands rape of Scotland, which was controversial and somewhat disturbing to look at, His works were satirical, purely terrifying and beautiful, They gave me chills and radiated intimidating aura throughout different collections, Also, I suspect more loudness in his collections when he approached the end of his life,
Were not talking about models personal feelings here, were talking about mine, Its all about the way Im feeling about my life,McQueen was a man of absolute certainty in both fashion and way of life, To him, there were no grey areas, so his sense of beauty and ideology were exactly that, McQueen is a genius. I dont often use that term to describe artists of any kind, but I really believe he is, I say is although he has passed away, I first saw mcqueens work in a documentary about the met gala, and I was immediately struck with how much I gravitated toward his work.
His inspirations, gothic romance, particularly Victorian gothic, English snd Scottish heritage, romanticism, naturalism, female sexuality as a weapon, are all things that are inspirational to my own art and self.
I have recently come upon of piece of his of my own commercial, but still lovely, and it made me more inspired to dig into his work.
It is such a shame that like many a tortured genius, his mental illness was too much to bear, Who knows what he could have created today, just lovely! wonderful to see his works and to learn how they came to be, Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Each illustration became my favorite page after page of the most exquisite fashion, beautifully presented and photographed,
It was a large format book and very heavy! Found the text a little hard to read being such huge pages and such tiny print I kept losing my place old eyes.
Brief but fascinating background on McQeen's life and artistic vision, Really ticked off that I never got to see this exhibition, Can we first off just praise the cover I mean unique, which is a way of describing the designer as well, The book gave a nice and straight forward way of getting to know the designer, his craft and his history, Doesnt go super in depth but what were really here for are the designs, To put it simply its very artistic and intentional which I love not to mention innovative, This book is nice to have lying around for visual candy, Nothing I have to say will do justice to this book and Lee's career as an artist, I can state though that even though I find it impossible that there might be some people that don't know about McQueen, this is a good starting point to get to know him and his work.
Alexander McQueen is my favourite fashion designer, with competition from Gareth Pugh, Vivienne Westwood, and Thierry Mugler, I was lucky enough to see the Savage Beauty exhibition when it was at the VampA in London back in, It's one of the best exhibitions I've ever been to and I found it absolutely beguiling, Goodreads reminded me of it by recommending the exhibition catalogue, perhaps the third good quality recommendation the algorithm has given me in nearly ten years.
I was delighted to find that the library had a borrowable copy of this sumptuous hardback volume, with its eerie cover hologram, It must make a very spooky coffee table book, as the eyes follow you and manifest in the stylised skull before the rest of McQueen's face.
In addition to being a very striking object, the book records the Savage Beauty exhibition beautifully, A good preface briefly recounts Alexander McQueen's biography, At the end there is an interview with Sarah Burton, who took over the fashion house after McQueen's tragic death, I found both of these fascinating and informative, Together with images of the garments exhibited in Savage Beauty, I was powerfully reminded of why I love Alexander McQueen designs, He was an incredible tailor and his garments always have an exquisite and distinctive silhouette, usually with the waist emphasised, His influences mixed the gothic, romantic, historical, and environmental, Some of his quotes express the severe and unapproachable vibes that I want from clothing:
"When you see a woman wearing McQueen, there's a certain hardness to the clothes that makes her look powerful.
It kind of fends people off, "
"It's almost like putting armour on a woman, It's a very psychological way of dressing, "
It's hard to find garments like that amid the high street's shapeless viscose and denim, McQueen's collections were art. As Burton says:
, . . he always called himself a designer, not an artist, He was a showman more than anything, Still, when you think about how he designed, it did feel more about art, It was never, "Oh, is this comfortable" It was all about the vision and the headtotoe look of it, When you saw the models lining up, it was so clear and so direct, Lee was a designer who was making a world and telling a story, Sometimes it was on such a level that maybe the fashion audience wasn't the right audience to tell it to, but what audience was right That's the problem I think he had.
The stigma: is it fashion Is it art But if it's not making money, you can't do these amazing shows, Lee did care about the commercial side of the industry, but what most people remember are the shows,
The Savage Beauty exhibition and catalogue are a wonderful tribute to McQueen, I also recommend sitelinkAlexander McQueen: Genius of a Generation to fans of his work, Fashion as Art
Alexander McQueenMarchFebruarywas an icon in the fashion industry, He is currently the subject of a spectacular exhibition of his works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and this book serves as a catalogue for that exhibition.
From the lenticular cover by Gary James McQueen 'Lenticular printing is a technology in which a lenticular lens is used to produce images with an illusion of depth, or the ability to change or move as the image is viewed from different angles' to the layout or deign of the book itself to the extraordinary photography by Sølve Sundsbø this book is an art piece by itself.
McQueen drew notice with his fashions that made femininity collide with masculinity, gowns and dresses that created a continuing dichotomy between life and death, lightness and darkness, predator and prey, man and machine.
His uses of fabric and elements not usually considered wearable resulted in very bizarre and at the same time hauntingly beautiful creations that, placed on mannequins, could be considered sculptures.
And that is how the exhibition and the catalogue are constructed, 'The Romantic Mind' shows soft fashion lines against a concrete backdrop, 'The Romantic Gothic' recalls a term McQueen used for his designs 'the Edgar Allen Poe of fashion', 'Romantic Nationalism' is a display of the Scottish versus the British mindset transformed into clothing, and the Objects gallery reveals strange objects of many types that explain how he viewed the world.
There is a fine Preface written by Andrew Bolton who curated the exhibition, an Introduction by Susannah Frankel, an interview by Tim Banks with the now almost equally famous Sarah Burton designer of Kate's Middleton's Royal wedding gown.
'The exhibition, organized by The Costume Institute, celebrates the late Alexander McQueen's extraordinary contributions to fashion, From his Central Saint Martins postgraduate collection ofto his final runway presentation, which took place after his death in February, Mr, McQueen challenged and expanded the understanding of fashion beyond utility to a conceptual expression of culture, politics, and identity, His iconic designs constitute the work of an artist whose medium of expression was fashion, The exhibition features approximately one hundred ensembles and seventy accessories from Mr, McQueen's prolific nineteenyear career. Drawn primarily from the Alexander McQueen Archive in London, with some pieces from the Givenchy Archive in Paris as well as private collections, signature designs including the "bumster" trouser, the kimono jacket, and the threepoint "origami" frock coat will be on view.
McQueen's fashions often referenced the exaggerated silhouettes of thes,s,s, ands, but his technical ingenuity always imbued his designs with an innovative sensibility that kept him at the vanguard.
'
This is a fine tribute to a fashion designer and conceptual artist who died far too young but whose contributions to contemporary fashion and art will live on.
This book is likely to become a collector's item, so handsomely designed and present as it is,
Grady Harp To quote from the introduction of the book itself, "The latest in a long line of male homosexual designers who exploit women while pandering to their own fantasies.
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That about sums it up, You would have to view women as objects to want to make them wear many of the things in this book, The installation curated by Andrew Bolton at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is absolutely wonderful, astonishing, extraordinary! I would give this book five if it contained photographs from the actual installation raw concrete stages, aged mirrors, Cabinet of Curiosities room, etc.
This.minute video will give you a good overview of the "experience": sitelink metmuseum. org/alexandermc
I took advantage of the extra hour to see the exhibit at:a, m. Saturday, and skip the queue which was two hours long when I came out at:a, m. ! That doesn't include the queue to get into the museum, . . Six hours after and still processing, I summed up for friends: Burton, Bosch, Braveheart, beads, bones, birds, brutal, beautiful, . Bravo!
I do not follow fashion closely by any stretch of the imagination, but found Alexander McQueen's craftsmanship breathtaking and his complex ideas expressed about Nature, culture, politics, gender, sexuality and beauty really fascinating.
If you are in/near NYC and can catch it before Augustth, I recommend the "Savage Beauty" exhibit highly, In the last week the museum will extend its normal hours for the exhibit to:p, m. on Thursday theth and Friday Saturday and Sunday it will stay open until MIDNIGHT! Being able to skip the queue and enjoy an extra hour before the museum opened was worth every taxdeductible dollar of membership.
Just saying