Friday, October 8, 2010

Alexander McQueen SS 2011 (someone had to talk about it)

Now, to me Fashion is one of the greatest Art forms out there, because of its courage, naturalness and universality, but necessarily also fashion has its own bugs, which lately have been taking over, caging this Art into the schemes of commerce and, why not, globalisation.
Let’s put it this way: when Picasso died, no one kept on painting portrait of geometrically deconstructed people signing them with the Artist’s name, because the vision that Picasso showed through his paintings resulted from a process of filtration of the image that died with the painter himself, so that the only way of bringing on his work was by imitating him, which is against every principle of Art itself, if it has any.
As we all know, these bugs i was talking about led society to a misconception of Fashion as an Art form, so that now, when an artist who works in this field disappears, his/her work is brought on by someone else.
It works this way, and sometimes it has been a good thing, thanks to some great artists’ interpretation of the major maisons’ fils rouges which worked out perfectly, but, according to my weak and quite insignificant opinion, it’s just something wrong. But that doesn’t mean i would eliminate this whole process if i could, you understand that saying goodbye to certain brands -cause that’s what they are now: brands- would be kind of a massacre (i told you, it’s weak).
Long story short, when we lost Lee McQueen, we lost one of the great artists of our times, and now, as sad as it is, there’s no way to bring back his unique message, aesthetic, vision just because they actually were unique!
That’s why the brand’s new collection left me struggling among contrasting feelings.
Personally, i felt Sarah Burton’s collection as a kind of “homage” to Lee’s Art, almost as a retrospective of his work.
Watching the collection, i caught many suggestions linked to exact moments of his artistic evolution, from the aseptic minimalism of the early collections, to the historical cuts that permeated all of his work, to the medieval embroidery of the last pieces. The prints, the materials, the buckles, the shoes, the decoration, you can feel the futuristic vibe as well as the strict relationship with nature, the artist’s avant-gardism as well as his romanticism, all in one collection.
Everything barely gathered together by a common theme, it being this “country” thing in the embroidery/prints/wheat/basket-weaved hair, which i found a bit pretentious.
Finally the collection left me with the desolating sensation that he is actually gone, forever, and i hate to get emotional but i can’t avoid it if i think of everything he could have still given to us.
Now it’s up to you Sarah, let’s see what you can do!

That being said, it was my favourite show of the season.
I mean, come on, it’s sartorial perfection! I had to hold my breath when the feather gown came in, after literally shivering to every single movement the model made in that incredible seaweed-ish dress. And the butterfly dress. And the wild use of leather lace.
Poetry.
I just wish Sarah started her own line…