Alexander McQueen

 I know everyone is going to be blogging/talking about Alexander McQueen's 2010 S/S show. The thing is....how can you not? The show was breathtaking, and that's the effect from looking at it on the insignificance of a laptop screen, I can't imagine what it was like to watch in person. Of course, we all know to expect eccentricity, surrealism and a complete shoving of every fashion boundary there is in a McQueen show. However, even though we expect this you can never fully imagine what he will create, as every show is out of this world. And this is exactly the angle of his S/S collection. Apparently, McQueen was envisioning life on Earth post-apocalypse....once we have devastated it with our carbon emissions etc. To quote from Sarah Mower's review on style.com, 'Humankind is made up of creatures that evolved from the sea, and we may be heading back to an underwater future as the ice cap dissolves.' For me personally, I didn't see the models as inspiring the look of creatures as such, as the digital prints reflected animalistic details like snakeskin. The backdrop of the show saw Raquel Zimmermann being covered in writhing snakes, and the clothes for me similarly suggested that animals had become one with human, becoming live cover-ups. Maybe that's in the eyes of McQueen's future? Who can possibly know other than himself.

That's one of the great things with the choice of colour, and the intricity of the detailing of the prints; you can interpret almost anything from them. For me, I saw the face of a man, a tiger and even mice...I think I've clearly been whipped up into a McQueen frenzy!

Anyhow, the collection was absolutely stunning. Ok, on the face of it you might think how the hell can you translate this to be wearable? But it's easy to see the familiar trends that have emerged from the S/S shows: thigh-skimming dresses, sky-scraper heels, a stong, exaggerated upper silouhette...we have actually seen this for the past few weeks. However, no one has made it into such a performance or such a clear work of art as well as being fashion. The only advice I can give when viewing this collection, is to look at it after you've seen the other offerings for today, as once you've seen this...everything else looks disappointly dowdy and boring.