Savage Beauty: Alexander McQueen exhibition comes home to V&A

Lee McQueen's legacy returns to the city that he loved
Savage beauty: (left) headpiece by Philip Treacy for Alexander McQueen and (right) a dress with antlers from autumn/winter 2006-7

The New York Times’ art elite described Savage Beauty as “a button pushing marvel: ethereal and gross, graceful and utterly manipulative” when it opened at the Metropolitan Museum in 2011, but the retrospective celebrating of the capital’s most revered contemporary designer is likely to prove even more emotive when it finally opens its doors in the capital next year.

It is after all, Lee McQueen – son of a cabbie – returning to the city that he loved. And a sombre homecoming for the designer who’s chilling taste for the macabre climaxed with his own suicide in 2010.

But the spectacle will be one for the capital’s fashion industry to take pride whilst also regretting McQueen’s loss, since the V&A’s fashion curator Claire Wilcox seeks to inject the haunting gore and arresting beauty that defined the Met’s sell out version with greater insights into the London centric world of Alexander McQueen and the city that served as an incubator to his talent.

Among the many new additions to the retrospective – there are 30 in total - are a host of rare pieces which were donated to the V&A by close contemporaries of the late designer including stylist Katy England, who was both a muse and advisor to McQueen from his early days, and close friend Annabelle Neilson. Gowns from the personal collection of the late fashion doyenne Isabella Blow, McQueen’s most passionate mentor, will also appear in the exhibition while the displays will undergo a redesign by Londoner Sam Gainsbury, the gifted set designer who collaborated on so many of McQueen's most memorable shows.

Certain to lend a greater sense of both place and personality to a masterful exhibition that seeks to combine McQueen’s famous shock and awe tactics - the bloodshed and rape of the battle of Culloden is juxtaposed with the grandeur of the baronial English court in this carefully curated body of work – with a greater insight into the man himself, the V&A’s Savage Beauty will celebrate the designer’s position as the capital’s greatest fashion visionary.

It’s greatest disappointment is that Lee McQueen cannot be present to witness its splendour.

The show runs from March 14 to July 19. Tickets at vam.ac.uk/savagebeauty

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