Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty - About the exhibition

ALEXANDER McQUEEN

SAVAGE BEAUTY

May 4—July 31, 2011  

The "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" exhibition, organized by The Costume Institute, will celebrate the late Alexander McQueen’s extraordinary contributions to fashion. It will feature approximately one hundred ensembles and seventy accessories from Mr. McQueen’s prolific nineteen-year career. Drawn primarily from the Alexander McQueen Archive in London, with some pieces from the Givenchy Archive in Paris as well as private collections, signature designs will be on view. 

The categories of the exhibition will be: 

The Romantic Mind

“You’ve got to know the rules to break them. That’s what I’m here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.” (Alexander McQueen)

Romantic Gothic and Cabinet of Curiosities

“People find my things sometimes aggressive. But I don’t see it as aggressive. I see it as romantic, dealing with a dark side of personality.” (Alexander McQueen)

Romantic Nationalism

“The reason I’m patriotic about Scotland is because I think it’s been dealt a really hard hand. It’s marketed the world over as . . . haggis . . . bagpipes. But no one ever puts anything back into it.” (Alexander McQueen)

Romantic Exoticism

“I want to be honest about the world that we live in, and sometimes my political persuasions come through in my work. Fashion can be really racist, looking at the clothes of other cultures as costumes. . . . That’s mundane and it’s old hat. Let’s break down some barriers.” (Alexander McQueen)

  Romantic Primitivism
“I try to push the silhouette. To change the silhouette is to change the thinking of how we look. What I do is look at ancient African tribes, and the way they dress. The rituals of how they dress. . . . There’s a lot of tribalism in the collections.” (Alexander McQueen)

 Romantic Naturalism
“I have always loved the mechanics of nature and to a greater or lesser extent my work is always informed by that.” (Alexander McQueen)