Alexander McQueen, razor shell clam dress.
Metamorphosis was an ongoing theme for the London fashion designer Alexander McQueen. This is also a subject I have explored in my own work. I was very pleased and lucky to see the Alexander McQueen exhibition, Savage Beauty, at the Victoria and Albert Museum over the summer. The demand for tickets was so great that for the last two weeks of the exhibition the museum remained open throughout the night.
Savage Beauty, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
McQueen was a man with a cinematic eye. Inspired by Hitchcock, Victorian England and nature, he created a fusion of art and fashion. The dimly lit rooms of the show were filled with strange female forms that were disturbingly beautiful. Feathers, clams and fabric was bound and draped over the bodies of mannequins.
Cabinet of Curiosities, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
One of the most striking rooms was entitled ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’. In the centre of the room a mannequin spun slowly, surrounded with walls crammed with imagery. My brain was bombarded with McQueen’s theatrical creativity. Screens showing his fashion shows, bones, butterflies, feathers, flowers, colour, texture along with the sound of a typewriter all added to the intensity of this eerie room.
Savage Beauty has to be one of the highlights of my year. I was taken into a dark fantasy world and challenged to think about the link between beauty and horror. Some of my mugshot artworks are of women who are beautiful despite having committed horrendous crimes. This has started me thinking about preconceived views of women, motherhood and the home.
Savage Beauty, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
‘I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists. I have to force people to look at things.’ (Alexander McQueen)
