Monday, October 6, 2008

paris spring/summer 2009 - alexander mcqueen



alexander mcqueen has one of fashion's most powerful narratives. his ability to tell a story through his clothes and presentation makes him one of the greatest minstrels of fashion. vaguely inspired by darwinism, mcqueen tackled one of the greatest problems of modern times, the environment. but he didn't do it in a vein similar to stella mccartney or greenpeace. his is more of a tale of the earth being transformed into synthetic world. a heavy topic considering these are just clothes, but mcqueen never took the theme too literally or conceptualized it to the point that it wasn't about the clothes anymore. his interpretation of it was from the opening prints of the show which were based on barks of trees that resembled tiger skin when done on softly draped silk dresses or mcqueen's trademark tailored jackets and trousers. as the show progressed the silhouette became sharper and more exaggerated and the prints taken from tree barks had been transformed into colourful hyper geometric prints or what appears to be markings that car tires would make. how mcqueen uses these prints as a symbolic gesture on his opinion about the state of the environment shows the lighter side of mcqueen's persona. it might not be one of his most emotionally charged collection, but there was an undeniable beauty with this presentation that was undeniably mcqueen.


photo: style.com

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