Alexander McQueen: A Masterpiece

The MET Celebrates the Late Fashion Designer

By: Katie Beattie

After almost a year since his passing, the late and greatly missed British Fashion Designer Alexander McQueen is being honoured by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The MET announced that its 2011 edition of its tony “Met Ball”, as Vogue’s annual Costume Institute Gala at the museum is known, has been inspired by the late designers work, who was an art collector himself, his final collection was inspired by Old Master paintings.

The gala event will be taking place on May 2^nd, 2011, and an exhibition of McQueen’s work will follow, running from May 4^th to July 31^st, entitled “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty”. A range of pieces will be included in the exhibition, from McQueen’s 1992 graduate collection from Central St. Martins, to designs created for Givenchy in the 90s, and pieces designed for the designer’s late friend, fashion icon Isabella Blow. The exhibit, “Savage Beauty” will not be arranged chronologically but around specific themes such as “The Savage Mind”, “Romantic Gothic”, “Romantic Nationalism”, “Romantic Exoticism” and “Romantic Primitivism”. The creative consultants’ for the exhibition are Sam Gainsbury and Joseph Bennett who produced many of McQueen’s runway shows.

The exhibit is expected to attract a great number of people and will be an emotional event for McQueen’s family, friends and fans. Curator of the Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton told Women’s Wear Daily, “His catwalk presentations were outstanding and straddle art and fashion. We want to get across two elements- the spectacle of the runway presentations and the beauty of his craftsmanship”.