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My Macbook Pro has been resurrected and almost all its data was recovered.
Pixie Dollhouse lives again! Sorry for the extended absence.
I'm back, back, back and blogging.
It really saddens me to learn that on the 11th February 2010, my favourite fashion designer of the past decade, Alexander McQueen, passed on. According to the Associated Press, he left a note and hung himself on the eve of his mother's funeral. It feels utterly surreal to be blogging about this so soon after my post about Daul Kim's suicide.
I'm not usually one to be deeply affected by the deaths of famous people. They're only human, after all, and life is fragile. If it is someone I admire, I am certainly dispirited by the news, but I don't weep. As I did not know them personally, perhaps any grief might be described as shallow - mostly born of regret that we've lost another great mind or talent, and that no more works of theirs may be produced. But there was something so sudden and shocking about Alexander McQueen's death, and something more... I don't know what it was. I sat there crying as I read the news, feeling very depressed indeed.
It is very difficult for me to express the impact his work and designs had on me. When the seasonal fashion weeks rolled along, his runway was the one I looked forward to the most. I am an actress, a theatre graduate, a writer of children's stories set in impossible worlds, and someone who never did outgrow my childhood fairy tales. And so, there is nothing like an Alexander McQueen show for me - a theatre of fashion filled with fantastical designs that wouldn't feel out of place in the worlds I write about, and that inhabit my head. His artistry is haunting. I often find myself going back to his designs over the years, and picking out various pieces as the 'ultimate' of something. "If I get married some day, that's what my wedding evening gown is going to look like," I'd tell a friend. Or even, "If I could only have one dress for the rest of my life, this would be it." When I write, I find many a fictitious character in my mind inevitably garbed in what suspiciously resembles a McQueen design, and I've had recurring dreams set in a surrealistic parallel universe, in which the world looks as if McQueen, Gaultier, Recuenco, Ghesquière and the Mulleavy sisters conspired to design it. In these dreams, I'm trapped in a bizarre carnival theme park with water(fall) rides that go over the edge of misty mountain cliffs, and a monstrous creature dwells in a cave, preventing anyone from leaving.
Where most other fashion designers are concerned, their clothes end for me when the season is over - when the pages of Vogue and Numéro no longer feature the dresses and shoes splashed across every editorial. But Alexander McQueen designs have a habit of staying with me.
His runway shows weren't simply walkways with living clothes hangars parading trendy garments in a line. Many of them were complete experiences. Two that immediately come to mind are:
1. Alexander McQueen Autumn/Winter 2006
The show ended with Kate Moss - a holographic apparition - floating in a glass pyramid. This video is a thing of pure beauty.
Hologram on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York:
Hologram live at the Alexander McQueen show at
Paris Fashion Week in Spring 2006:
2. Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2004
This entire show was was a giant dance extravaganza.
I believe the full show can be found if you sniff around the internet. Youtube has it all chopped up in clips uploaded by various members.
RUNWAY FAVOURITES
From the most recent (2007 - 2010)
Alexander McQueen collections.
Spring/Summer 2007
Autumn/Winter 2008
Spring/Summer 2008
Alexander McQueen with Philip Treacy (the man behind the hats).
Autumn/Winter 2007
Resort 2009
Spring/Summer 2009
There are many, many better and more flattering pictures
of this dress I've seen but Style.com chose a rather terrible
one. Poor Abbey Lee looks extremely awkward there.
How amazing would the outfit above look in a science fiction movie?
Pre-Fall 2009
Amazing silhouette.
It looks like it could be in a Lotte Reiniger silhouette animation film.
From Lotte Reiniger's 'Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed' (1926)
Autumn/Winter 2009
If Ursula the Sea Witch were remotely real,
this is pretty much what she would wear, no?
Resort 2010
Spring/Summer 2010
I kind of really want these.
No joke.
On a random note...
I remember being quite amused by Alexander McQueen's take on celebrity quite a while back... Amused enough to actually save this quote, which must have been from 2008, during his Los Angeles store opening.
"If she [Paris Hilton] comes past the shop, hopefully she'll just keep walking. I don't really covet that sort of thing. I'm not too fond of these openings, I find them quite superficial," said McQueen. "The people who wear McQueen wear it because they want to wear it, not because it's the new thing in town."
This isn't the first time the designer has made known his aversion to celebrity. Last year he told US Harper's Bazaar: "I can't get sucked into that celebrity thing because I think it's just crass. I work with people who I admire and respect. It's never because of who they are."
"It's not about celebrity; that would show a lack of respect for the work, for everyone working on the shows, because when the pictures come out it's all about who's in the front row. What you see in the work is the person itself. And my heart is in my work."
- Los Angeles Times
Rest In Peace,
Lee Alexander McQueen
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Quote Of The Week
ME: "Man, those photos from the Percy Jackson movie make it look like he defeats Medusa with an iPhone."
AMANDA DE WITT: "There's an app for that."
AMANDA DE WITT: "There's an app for that."
