Alexander McQueen exhibition at the V&A

“London is where I was brought up. It?s where my heart is and where I get my inspiration,? Alexander McQueen.

Listen up! There are only nine days remaining for you to get yourselves to the V&A to peruse the stunningly curated Alexander McQueen Savage Beautyexhibition – the only major retrospective in Europe of the work of the visionary fashion designer celebrating his extraordinary creative talent in a spectacular showcase. PA Life were kindly invited by our friends at PCC to the Corporate Partners? Late View on Monday 20 July, courtesy of The Doyle Collection. 

“Lee Alexander McQueen was brought up in London, studied here and based his brand here,” says Martin Roth, V&A Director. “By staging the exhibition at the V&A, it feels like we?re bringing his work home.”

Rather apt, as McQueen once stated, ?The collections at the V&A never fail to intrigue and inspire me. The nation is privileged to have access to such a resource…. it?s the sort of place I?d like to be shut in overnight.?

More than 345,000 people have now visited, making it the most visited paid-for exhibition at the Museum in the last decade – 83,910 tickets were sold before the doors opened to the public on 14 March.

Originated by the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Savage Beauty has been edited and expanded for the V&A?s large exhibition galleries. It features 66 additional garments, including rare pieces, lent by private individuals and collectors such as Annabelle Neilson and Katy England, as well as pieces from the House of Givenchy and the Isabella Blow Collection.

Wander its rooms, as if in a trance, and soak up the tailoring and eclectic range of influences on display, all of which challenge the boundaries of art and fashion, blending the latest technology with traditional craftsmanship. The rooms are magnificent; each dressed to match a theme.

The clothes are beautiful, and as close to being works of art as clothes will ever come. Jackets and dresses that smooth and sculpt and cleverly distract from all the things women most want to hide, shoes that are impossibly and unrealistically too high to feasibly wear? there is no doubt that you will be transfixed.

Move through the rooms, the first is London,displaying his earliest work, to Savage Mind.Then onto Romantic Gothic,Romantic Primitivismand the centrepiece: the Cabinet of Curiosities,before aptly closing with Plato?s Atlantis,the final show that McQueen presided over.

“That?s what I?m here for, to demolish the rules but keep the tradition? – it is an unmissible and moving exhibition, brimming with spectacle and theatricality.

You are still be able to buy tickets at the Museum, with 200 additional tickets being sold each day on a first-come-first-served basis. This really is one not to be missed.

http://www.vam.ac.uk

Written by Amelia Walker