✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Fashion

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, V&A ★★★★★

14 Mar 15 – 02 Aug 15, 10:00 AM – 5:30 PM

The V&A welcome Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty - an exhibition set to be the best fashion exhibition to come to London in 2015.

By CW Contributor on 27/5/2014

8 CW readers are interested
Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, V&A 4 Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, V&A Joseph Funnell
Culture Whisper says ★★★★★
Below is our preview, giving background information about the exhibition. Click here to read our Savage Beauty review.

Savage Beauty
 at the Victoria and Albert Museum London celebrates the work of the late Alexander McQueen, the most beloved rebel of the fashion world, whose dark imaginative designs and precise tailoring outraged, delighted and fascinated all who encountered them. 
Alexander McQueen biography
Four time winner of the British Designer of the Year award McQueen started his career as an apprentice on Savile Row London, famous for its bespoke suits and tailors. He worked as chief designer at Givenchy before founding his own eponymous label. 
As Claire Wilcox, the show's V&A curator, told CW, ’his style might have been disruptive but it was always underpinned by exceptional skill’. And this theme of unapologetic individualism and creativity runs throughout the retrospective, highlighting McQueen’s unequivocal refusal to compromise his ideas.
In McQueen’s hands runway shows became a vehicle for expressing complex ideas and challenging the boundaries of what we consider to be beautiful. His work raised questions usually beyond fashion’s remit, about our throw-away culture, race, misogyny and violence against women, religion, plastic surgery, our reliance on technology and more. The tight corsets, face masks and towering armadillo heels had critics constantly asking whether his was a fashion of empowerment or subjugation.
What you need to know about Savage Beauty at the V&A 
To start with, hosting the exhibition at the V&A is a genius move. As the museum's director Martin Roth explained, bringing the show to London, ‘is like bringing the exhibition home’. McQueen, the son of a cab driver, was brought up in London, did research for his degree in the V&A’s fashion archives while studying at Central Saint Martins and worked here all his life. After five years at Givenchy, McQueen launched his own label in 2000 and went on to be part of several V&A projects, including the live catwalks ‘Fashion in Motion’, and exhibitions ‘Cutting Edge’ and ‘Radical Fashion’ (2004). As Wilcox says, ‘he only ever worked with people or places he loved and respected’, a principle fittingly upheld in this exhibition at his beloved V&A.
New additions to the V&A exhibition
With this return to London after sell-out success in the Met, Savage Beauty is getting a refresh: swelling in size by one third and gaining forty new accessories and garments. (‘And if anyone has anything else lying around do let us know!’ Wilcox urges.) Documenting the first seven shows from his clothing line, the exhibition also boasts a fantastic cabinet of curiosities with one hundred garments produced in collaboration with other designers, including the famous bird's nest hat designed by Shaun Leane and Philip Treacy.
The structure of the show itself is unlike any other fashion exhibition we’ve seen, leading visitors through an enchanted forest exploring McQueen's gothic, primitivist, naturalist and futurist influences. Particularly note-worthy are the rarely seen sketches, previously hidden away in the McQueen archive. You’ll also be able to experience the awe-inspiring McQueen catwalk shows from a series of screens, bringing to life the dynamic and theatrical performances of his label.
Alexander McQueen designs: our favourite pieces
Particular highlights we can’t wait for include delicate gothic pieces influenced by poet Edgar Allan Poe and producer Tim Burton with a dash of Dickens' Miss Havisham thrown in for good measure. Then there are influences from the animal world, primitivism and the fragility of nature, as well as echoes of McQueen’s own Scottish ancestry and references to the twilight years of the British Raj in ‘The Girl who Lived in the Tree’ (2008). Also look out for the entire room dedicated to the incredible Kate Moss moment in 2006 when the 'ghost' of the supermodel appeared on the catwalk thanks to 19th-century technology. The exhibition finishes on the high note of the ‘Plato’s Atlantis’ show of 2010, in which armadillo-shoed models stalked the catwalk dressed as members of a futuristic amphibious species.
However, as Wilcox explains, while ‘he absorbed influences and wore them lightly, the work was always McQueen’. So there’s a reason why this ‘homecoming’ show is being called the greatest ever fashion exhibition. From a gold horned headpiece donated by Givenchy to the sequined top inlayed with the haunting image of the famous Romanov children, this exhibition triumphantly demonstrates McQueen’s raw energy and fearlessness. The V & A, as one of the leading fashion museums in London, provides us with one of the top future exhibitions in London in 2015. 


click for more visual arts
recommendations

What Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, V&A
Where V&A, South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL | MAP
Nearest tube South Kensington (underground)
When 14 Mar 15 – 02 Aug 15, 10:00 AM – 5:30 PM
Price £17.50
Website Click here for more information and to book via the V&A



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 8–10 December
Things to do in London this weekend: 8–10 December
Thoughtful Gifts under £100
Thoughtful gifts under £100
Rose Leslie and Suranne Jones in Vigil series 2, BBC One (Photo: BBC)
What to watch on TV this week
  • click for more visual arts
    recommendations

  • Friday Lates

    If you can't get enough of Alexander McQueen, the V&A are hosting one of their fantastic Friday Lates all about the London fashion designer on Friday 27th March, 6.30 - 10pm. Head to South Kensington for an evening of skeletal armoury, skins, scales and crystals all inspired by McQueen's fascination with the natural world. Click here for more details. 

What members say

    Dramatic, immersive, enchanting. Pash4fash aside, the story of McQueen, his craftsmanship, energy and darkness are absorbing.

    Moya Stirrup

Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

8

Alexander McQueen

fashion exhibition

V&A exhibition

fashion exhibition in london

free Alexander McQueen exhibition

new fashion london

Alexander McQueen designer

Highland Rape collection alexander mcqueen 1995

shoe exhibition 2015

Selling Fast

You might like

  • Skin, photograph by Danny Payne, courtesy of Design Museum

    Women Fashion Power, Design Museum

  • Ophelia Finke for McQ

    Artist Ophelia Finke, new McQ spring campaign 2015

  • McQueen by Gary Wallis

    McQueen: Backstage - The Early Shows

  • Corset by Detolle for Mainbocher; © Condé Nast / Horst Estate

    Horst: Photographer of Style, V&A



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×