Alexander McQueen – Vestoj http://vestoj.com The Platform for Critical Thinking on Fashion Thu, 04 May 2023 05:45:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.5 Gods and Kings http://vestoj.com/gods-and-kings/ http://vestoj.com/gods-and-kings/#respond Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:35:21 +0000 http://vestoj.com/?p=6215

THERE IS A TENDENCY, across fashion exhibitions and publishing, to portray the fashion designer as a creative genius. The ‘Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty’ exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in 2015, for example, emphasised its demonstration of ‘the extraordinary talent of one of the most innovative designers of recent times.’1 Such a depiction positions the designer outside the realities of the fashion system, as a uniquely autonomous figure of otherworldly measure: as god, or king. While this mode of representation may be customary, even habitual, it is deeply misrepresentative of the designer, and the contemporary fashion system in which their work resides.

Curators of the 2014 Dries Van Noten exhibition ‘Inspirations,’ held at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, asserted that the show would reveal the creative fashion design process by way of an exploration of Van Noten’s many individual inspirations – the garments were accompanied by images, sculptures, fabrics, music and found objects that spoke of Van Noten’s inspiration gathering. In both this exhibition and its second iteration, at Antwerp’s Mode Museum in 2015, visitors were invited to partake in ‘an intimate journey into [Van Noten’s] artistic universe [which would reveal] the singularity of his creative process.’2 Reviewing the exhibition for Vogue, Hamish Bowles wrote that the show was a ‘magical tour to unwrap the mysteries of Dries’ passion, process, creativity, and singular talent.’3 Thus, this exhibition, like ‘Savage Beauty,’ constructed a deep sense of worship to the creative talent of the individual fashion designer. This curatorial approach, beginning, fashion historian Valerie Steele suggests, with the seminal 1992 exhibition devoted to the talent of Gianni Versace at the Design Laboratory at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, has become ‘the most immediately accessible and popular type of fashion exhibition.’4

Recent publications, such as Dana Thomas’ 2015 book Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano and Andrew Wilson’s 2015 biography Alexander McQueen: The Blood Beneath the Skin, have sought to reveal a more personal, human side of the fashion designer and debunk this status as otherworldly creative genius. However, such texts are regularly met with critical response. In reaction to Thomas’ publication, fashion reporter Alexander Fury wrote for the Independent that it was a mere ‘exercise in muck-racking.’5 Sarah Mower also declared in The Guardian that it was ‘calculated to fire hatred.’6 And Cathy Horyn claimed in The New York Times that Thomas presented ‘her subjects one-dimensionally, as a kind of British double act of talent destroyed.’7 This criticism was in large part, according to Horyn, due to its lack of recognition of the subjects as ‘special cases, as true artists.’ If Thomas’ text trivialised the talent of these two designers, Wilson’s text made far more of McQueen’s extraordinary talent. However, Wilson also exposed a childhood of abuse that McQueen was careful to conceal, the result of which, Mower wrote, being the sense of ‘raw wounds ripped open.’ What is true of both publications is that they similarly employ the romantic notion of fashion designer as sole creative genius as their point of departure for exploring the lives of their subjects. The construction, in these texts as in exhibitions, of the designer as creative celebrity relies upon the myth of solitary design genius in order to garner audience curiosity.

Media coverage of fashion designers therefore presents two paradoxical figures: on the one hand, that of the designer as genius, and on the other, the designer as flawed human figure. This tension evident in both fashion biography and in the numerous exhibitions of recent years, is a point of much contention. Of course, the notion of ‘creative genius’ is not solely reserved for fashion designers. All manner of creative individuals have long been elevated to genius status by authors, curators and marketing managers as a story-telling and audience-gathering technique. What is interesting about this notion of fashion designer (or artist, or musician) as genius – as god or king – is the way in which it is promoted for commercial ends, in not only in the publishing industry but also in the museum and art gallery setting. Fashion continues to hold a somewhat precarious position in the gallery space, and in relation to art, and by presenting designers in this way, fashion seeks the status of high art to legitimise itself in the sanctified realm of the museum. As such, the genius mantle is used as both justification and vindication.

This genre of fashion exhibition, in evidence not only in ‘Inspirations’ and ‘Savage Beauty,’ but in other recent shows including ‘Charles James: Beyond Fashion’ at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute in 2014, ‘Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love’ at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2014 and ‘RED Comme des Garçons: innovation, provocation’ at London’s Live Archives in 2015, is a lucrative template for major galleries, attracting record-breaking punters and delivering substantial financial return. This return is not only directed to the institutions by way of audience numbers, but also towards the design houses involved. However, as fashion journalist Suzy Menkes points out, despite great economic return, ‘almost no fashion exhibition could take place without some external investment.’8 This investment, Menkes continues, frequently comes by way of brand sponsorship. Arts journalist Ellen Gamerman suggests that ‘for luxury companies, museum exhibits are becoming an important new tool in their marketing arsenals.’9 Thus, art institutions exhibiting fashion regularly become caught between the ethics of commercial and creative imperatives, as well as the demands of designers in terms of exhibition content, structure and promotion. These ethical conundrums undoubtedly effect the tone of the final exhibition, often rendering it more a press gesture than a critically curated exhibition of the designer’s work.

While the production of an exhibition that touts the fashion designer as individual artistic genius may be of great economic benefit to the institution putting on the show, or to the author selling the book, it unfortunately also perpetuates a disconnect from fashion designers that, as Steele notes, indicates ‘a profound misunderstanding of the fashion process.’10 The fashion designer does not stand outside of the fashion system as a lone ranger. Rather, the designer is but one participant in the vast network of social relations that make up the fashion process. Fashion theorist Yuniya Kawamura suggests that to focus on the individual designer as unique creator ‘writes out of the account the numerous other people involved in the production of any work, and also draws attention away from the various socially constituting and determining processes involved.’11 Indeed, the construction of the myth of the fashion designer as genius offers little in terms of a reflection of the workings of the contemporary fashion system, particularly in the context of today’s industry constantly in flux, with fashion designers ever more pliable to the whims and desires of conglomerate brand directors.

Deconstructing the myth of the fashion designer as a solitary creative genius need not belittle a designer’s extraordinary talent and vision. Rather, in recognising the role of the fashion designer within the multifaceted fashion system it is possible to acknowledge this talent without resorting to the extremes of either worship or ‘muck-racking.’

 

Harriette Richards is Melbourne-based Kiwi currently undertaking a PhD in cultural studies at Western Sydney University.

Silvie Deutsch is an American artist, all images shown here are from her 2010 series ‘Seam Drawings.’


  1. http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-alexander-mcqueen-savage-beauty/ 

  2. http://www.momu.be/en/tentoonstelling/dries-van-noten.html 

  3. http://www.vogue.com/866584/dries-van-noten-inspirations-exhibition/ 

  4. V Steele, ‘Museum Quality: The Rise of the Fashion Exhibition,’ in Fashion Theory, 2008, 12:1, p.15. 

  5. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/gods-and-kings-by-dana-thomas-book-review-exposing-the-seams-cruelly-10011203.html 

  6. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/22/gods-and-kings-alexander-mcqueen-john-galliano-dana-thomas-beneath-the-skin-andrew-wilson-brutal-bio 

  7. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/books/review/gods-and-kings-by-dana-thomas.html?_r=0 

  8. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/fashion/is-fashion-really-museum-art.html?_r=0 

  9. http://www.wsj.com/articles/are-museums-selling-out-1402617631 

  10. V Steele, Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988, p.9. 

  11. Y Kawamura, Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies, Berg, New York, 2005. 

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Vestoj x VNIVRS: Constellations in Art, Theatre and Fashion http://vestoj.com/vestoj-x-vnivrs-parallels-and-constellations-in-art-theatre-and-fashion-2/ Fri, 21 Feb 2014 00:00:45 +0000 http://www.vestoj.com/current/?p=2619 IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF truths in a theatrical, fashion and art context, glass and windows can play a discrete yet significant role. A material that moves between obstruction and amplification – being used to focus or divide subjects on a stage – glass reinforces theatre and fashion’s tradition of trickery and deception.

A person on stage has a dual experience: as witness to immediacy of her own presence, and also as a spectacle consumed by the audience. This parallel positioning and distance is manipulated even further by the use of glass, whereby the image of a subject might be fragmented, divided or isolated as a figure on stage.

‘Geometric forms inhabited and activated by the presence of the viewer, [producing] a sense of uneasiness and psychological alienation through a constant play between feelings of inclusion and exclusion.’

 – Dan Graham

Dan Graham, Two-way Mirror Punched Steel Hedge Labyrinth, 1994-1996, courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris.
Dan Graham, Ying/Yang Pavilion, 2003.

‘Within theatrical jargon a syntagm fourth wall stands for the imaginary, fictive partition between the actor and the audience […] Spy-glass mirror acting as the front wall of the cube, separates the encapsulated stage from the voyeurist audience, which the actors now cannot see, facing instead their own multiplied image.’

– Description of ‘Inferno / Divine Comedy’ directed by Tomaz Pandur and written by Dante Alighieri, at the National Theatre Maria Guerrero, Madrid 2005.

‘Inferno / Divine Comedy’, written by Dante Alighieri, directed by Tomaz Pandur, scenography by Numen, 2005.

‘[…] the front gauze flew up and the lights brightened to reveal an impressive, appropriately rather gloomy set, with huge windows set at an angle and letting us understand that the “cart” had, in fact, been a centrally placed four-poster bed […]’

– ‘The Turn of the Screw’ directed by Benjamin Britten, 2010, review by Peter Lathan for The British Theatre Guide.

‘The Turn of the Screw’, directed by Benjamin Britten, adapted from the story by Henry James, 2010.
‘Faith, Hope and Charity (Glaube Liebe Hoffnung)’, directed by Christoph Marthaler, written by Ödön von Horváth and Lukas Kristl, scenography by Anna Viebrock, 2012.
Macbeth, directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov, opera by Guiseppi Verdi, conducted by Teodor Currentzis, 2009.
Alexander McQueen, spring/summer 2001 ‘Voss’.
Mango, spring/summer 2011, Madrid.
Guy Bourdin for Vogue, 1975.
Steven Meisel for Vogue, September 1993.
Jil Sander spring/summer 2000 campaign, photography by Mario Sorrenti.
Anna Ellinor Sundström is a photographer, filmmaker and founder of VNIVRS.
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Vestoj x VNIVRS: Forces in Art, Theatre and Fashion http://vestoj.com/vestoj-x-vnivrs-forces-in-art-theatre-and-fashion-explosions/ Thu, 19 Dec 2013 22:51:29 +0000 http://www.vestoj.com/current/?p=2271 WATER – IN ITS VAST eternity – reaches the infinite within us, connecting the single entity into a whole. One drop within a body of water expands to the entirety of the sea; birth, flooding, drowning. Life and death are held within the liquid mass of water, and can deliver us back to the beginning of it all. Through water, we are held within ourselves, and we project our own image onto it. We find ourselves seduced by the sub-conscious dream, only here does our body allow us to meditate on our void; shifting attention from the outside world and creating a space for healing, transformation and rebirth. The immersive qualities of the earthly elements embody and saturate us wholly.

‘The external spectacle helps intimate grandeur unfold’1 wrote the philosopher Gaston Bachelard. To take notice of our perceptions, let them rush in, blow over us, is a post-modern ritual, replacing ancient and religious modes of delivery: cleansing and healing. In consuming a spectacle, our senses are engaged. In this experience, we project our image, suspending it in space, meditating on our own void. In search of answers, we turn to spectacles that captivate our senses: art, theatre, fashion and cinema.

Bill Viola, ‘The Crossing’, video/sound installation, photograph by David Heald, 1996.
Alexander McQueen, autumn/winter, 2004.

 

 

‘Like the sea, it reveals the depths of being within us.’

– Philippe Diolé2

 

 

Random International, ‘Rain Room’, 2012.

 

 

Fendi, spring/summer, 2014.

 

 

‘When the waters rise, humanity will go back to the place from whence it came. “but then again, I’m no Nostradamus…”’

– Alexander McQueen3

 

 

 

Alexander McQueen, ‘Plato’s Atlantis’, spring/summer, 2010.

‘Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing.’

– Hiroshi Sugimoto4 

Christian Dior, Cruise, 2014, photograph courtesy of Bureau Betak.
Hiroshi Sugimoto, ‘Seascapes’, 2006, installation view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, US.

‘Why is the spectacle of the sea so infinitely and eternally agreeable? Because the sea presents at once the idea of immensity and movement.’

– Charles Baudelaire5

Bill Viola, ‘The Messenger’, 1986.
Peter Sellars’ production of Richard Wagner’s, ‘Tristan und Isolde’, 2004, installation view at Opéra National de Paris, featuring a video by Bill Viola.

Anna Ellinor Sundström is a photographer, filmmaker and founder of VNIVRS.


  1. G Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Beacon Press, Boston, 1994, p. 182. 

  2. P Diolé, The Most Beautiful Desert of All, Jonathan Cape, London, 1959, p. 14 

  3. http://www.alexandermcqueen.com/experience/en/alexandermcqueen/archive/?years=2010#id_article=260 

  4. http://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/seascape.html 

  5. C Baudelaire, Intimate Journals, Dover Publications, New York, 2006, p. 90 

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Vestoj x VNIVRS: Forces in Art, Theatre and Fashion http://vestoj.com/vestoj-x-vnivrs-forces-in-art-theatre-and-fashion-storm/ Fri, 29 Nov 2013 00:26:05 +0000 http://www.vestoj.com/current/?p=1985 NATURE CONTINUES TO FASCINATE us: we observe in awe from a distance its potential for violence and physicality. Impressed and over-powered by fear and respect for this great and unknown, we try to imitate and re-create these forces, or domesticate them to a scale we can control. In beholding spectacles of nature, we have an intuitive reaction to that which can conquer us, and it will forever have this potential.

Storm insists on change as an element of movement, its force and eternal mission derives destruction from flow. When it crosses us, its urge of movement requires an abandonment of our old thoughts and actions. We move where the wind blows us. In this fight for our own existence, we adopt the characteristics and patterns of movement of such forces of nature. Subjects move with the order of nature, and it will forever hold this power over us.

Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave, (wood block print), early 1820s.
JMW Turner, ‘Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth’, 1842.

‘It is the principle of “correspondences” to receive the immensity of the world, which they transform into intensity of our intimate being’

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, 1994. 

Atelier Brueckner, ‘Magic Box’, State Grid Pavilion, EXPO Shanghai, Better City – Better Life, photography by Roland Halbe, 2010.
Alexander McQueen, autumn/winter 2003 ‘Scanners’.

‘Art imitates nature, and it is the part of the same discipline to know the form and the matter up to a point.’

R P Hardie and R K Gaye from Physica in The Works of Aristotle, 1930.

Tokujin Yoshioka, ‘The Snow’, installation view at Mori Art Museum, 2010.
‘Solo Echo’, 2012, Nederlands Dans Theater.
Lacoste autumn/winter 2012, photography by Yannis Vlamos.
John Galliano, autumn/winter 2009.

 ‘Oh, and there’s Night, there’s Night, when wind full of cosmic space

Fling that emptiness out of your arms

into the space we breathe – maybe that the birds

will feel the extended air in a more fervent flight’ 

Rainer Maria Rilke, the first elegy in Duino Elegies, 1930.

Storm over Alaska, Satellite image from NASA, 2011.
‘Symphony in D Minor’, Patrick Gallagher and Chris Klapper, 2012.

Anna Ellinor Sundström is a photographer, filmmaker and founder of VNIVRS.

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Vestoj x VNIVRS: Forces in Art, Theatre and Fashion http://vestoj.com/vestoj-x-vnivrs-forces-in-art-theatre-and-fashion-water/ Thu, 21 Nov 2013 12:29:03 +0000 http://www.vestoj.com/current/?p=1877 IN THE FINAL INSTALMENT in the series of forces in art, theatre and fashion we turn our attention to the phenomenon of the ‘explosion’. In opposition to water – the origin of earth, fire is its antagonist, with a force to destroy and to leave an empty surface where there once was life. In order to be reborn, we must let destruction in; only therein can we create ourselves anew.

The physical presence of explosions are at once catastrophic and annihilating, yet utterly fascinating. Perhaps it is exactly these qualities and beliefs, those of the apocalypse and the end of the world that deliver us equal fear, equal calm. In striving to create something new, we must not be afraid to obliterate the past.

Roy Lichtenstein, 1965-1966.
Nick Knight, paint explosions, from Another Man, autumn/winter 2005.
Robert Longo, ‘Untitled (Nagasaki, B)’ from the series ‘The Sickness of Reason’, 2003.

Michelangelo Antonioni, final scene in ‘Zabriskie Point’, 1970.

‘Scars of damage and disruption are the modern’s seal of authenticity; by their means, art desperately negates the closed confines of the ever-same; explosion is one of its invariants. Anti-traditional energy becomes a voracious vortex. To this extent, the modern is myth turned against itself; the timelessness of myth becomes the catastrophic instant that destroys temporal continuity.’

Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, 2004.

Eyal Gever, ‘Nuclear Bomb’, May 2012.

‘If you could record an explosion with a high-speed camera that takes one thousand images per second, for example, you’d see a thousand pictures. If you hung them up you’d see a thousand different sculptural forms. Crazy! The form changes constantly. So much is happening. So much happens in a thousandth of a second. Yet the explosion is the opposite: there’s a bang, and then it’s done.’

Roman Signer, interviewed by Armin Senser for BOMB Magazine, autumn 2008 

Alexander McQueen, autumn/winter 2011 campaign, photograph by David Sims.
Olafur Eliasson, ‘The Large Iceland Series’ 2012, photograph courtesy of the artist and Neugerriemschneider, Berlin.
Roman Signer, ‘Aktion in Sedrun’, 2010.
Beyonce, music video for ‘Mine’, 2013, video still by Pierre Debusschere.
Alexander McQueen, autumn/winter 1998 ‘Joan’.
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