I treated myself to an Art Fund National Art Pass recently; I thought I would be a bit more proactive about using my day off during the week to make the most of London and visit galleries and museums. This week I was really looking forward to seeing Savage Beauty, the Alexander McQueen retrospective at the V&A Museum. It didn't disappoint; the creations were well-displayed and each room had different music or sounds which really set the mood. I found the inspiration from nature really absorbing - I loved the idea of creating a dress from razor clam shells.
A razor clam shell-encrusted dress from McQueen’s Voss spring/summer 2001 collection. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
Many of the shapes of the shoes and jewellery or headpieces were spiral-horned or taloned. Feathers and birds were a common feature - painted goose feathers were particularly effective.
Tulle and lace dress with veil and antlers, Widows of Culloden, Autumn/Winter 2006-07. Model: Raquel Zimmermann at Viva London. Image: firstVIEW
Image: Marie Claire
One of the rooms forms an incredible "Cabinet of Curiosities" - filled floor to ceiling with more fetishistic pieces. Dress No. 13 (SS 1999) is his famous spray painted dress; this forms the centrepiece along with with the film of the robots spraying the model.
I needed to sit down in the middle to take it all in.
Picture credit: Victoria and Albert Museum London
You then walk through into a darkened room which reveals an unexpectedly moving hologram . The lady in front of me even shed a couple of tears.
This exhibition was originally shown at the Met in New York in 2011. Other people have written about it better than me, see here, here or here, but I found it a fabulous collection and of creative interest to anyone as an example of how to gain inspiration from art, film, nature, foreign and local culture and how to break rules (after you have learnt and mastered them). McQueen promoted and lived freedom of thought and expression. I'm all for that. He was also interested in creating beauty from non-conventionally beautiful or even ugly things. I was thinking about my cancer and how it has forced me to create a new life from the ugly feelings it left me with. There is still plenty of room left for beauty and creativity in it.
