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Alexander McQueen

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This is a fine tribute to a fashion designer and conceptual artist who died far too young but whose contributions to contemporary fashion and art will live on. This book is likely to become a collector's item, so handsomely designed and present as it is.

Alexander McQueen - when someone pushes themselves to their maximum potential, they produce great things. I just wonder what the cost was. Yes, he killed himself, but what actually contributed to his suicide, and if it was the pressures of his very high pressured responsibility, was it worth it? He produced perfect work. I'm not saying At what cost? because I don't know his circumstances, and maybe the stress of his empire wasn't what drove him to suicide.

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After his tailoring apprenticeship, he went on to learn exact military tailoring and then the detailed art of the Japanese kimono. There has to be a sinister aspect, whether it’s melancholy or sadomasochist. I think everyone has a deep sexuality, and sometimes it’s good to use a little of it – and sometimes a lot of it – like a masquerade.’

As a designer you go through every nook and cranny to find inspiration. I get more inspiration from the personality of a region than the actual ethnic origin I think it's more important for the evolution of any design.' As a place for inspiration Britain is the best in the world. You’re inspired by the anarchy in the country.’ The finale was inspired by a photograph by Joel-Peter Witkin entitled Sanitarium (1983), which depicted a voluptuous woman connected via a breathing tube to a stuffed monkey. On McQueen's catwalk, the role was played by the fetish writer Michelle Olley. As evolution advanced and each model charted the progression from life on land to life under the sea, their features changed. Hair was either plaited tight to the head in mounds or sculpted into fin-like peaks, while the contours of models’ faces were distorted with prosthetic enhancements, both features connoting biological adaptation. Colours and textures shifted with the transition from species to species. Camouflage prints of roses, and jacquards depicting moths in green and brown tones, referenced life above the sea; amphibious snake prints suggested a transition to water; and designs in blues and purples incorporated images of ocean creatures, such as stingrays and jellyfish. Here McQueen perfected the use of digital printing techniques with each design engineered specifically for individual garments. Right. All the works were part of McQueen’s archive and we photographed them there. The models we hired had worked as dress models for McQueen, so they were familiar with wearing his garments. We shot the photographs in December 2010, on a very fast schedule. We had to start printing the book in February so that copies would arrive from the Italian printer in time for the show’s opening in May.

I spoke with Gwen Roginsky—who has served as the publication director and production manager of Costume Institute books for twenty years—about her experience working on the Museum’s best-selling publication to date. McQueen once said, ‘London’s where I was brought up. It’s where my heart is and where I get my inspiration’. London was at the centre of McQueen’s world. McQueen's romantic sensibility propelled his creativity and advanced his fashion in directions both unimagined and unprecedented. His individualistic and defiant vision was augmented by an acute sense of time and place, and a preoccupation with the exotic and the untamed. Filtered through a powerful modernity McQueen's work was, above all, driven by his fascination with the beauty and savagery of the natural world. And Alexander McQueen.. well...he was a Pisces...Martian meets Surrealist meets Tailor meets Romantic.

One of the things that made the Savage Beauty catalogue such a success is the evocative imagery by fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø, and I think readers might be interested to know that there is a little more to the photographs than meets the eye. How did these images come to be? I found it to be pretty fascinating stuff - it is kind of amazing the reactions that some of the pictures can evoke. This approach to fashion, however, combined the precision and traditions of tailoring and pattern making with the improvisations of draping and dressmaking, an approach that became more refined after his tenure as creative director of Givenchy in Paris. It is this way of working, at once rigorous and impulsive, disciplined and unconstrained, that underlies McQueen's singularity and inimitability. 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.’

The world's leading museum of art and design

Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2010 show – an interpretation of what people would look like if humans had evolved from sea creatures. Photograph: Lauren Greenfield/Institute The Museum of Savage Beauty explores the hidden stories and craftsmanship behind some of the most remarkable objects made by Alexander McQueen and his creative collaborators. Here the designer's iconic pieces are placed alongside historical objects from the V&A’s collections, which represent some of the many design traditions that inspired him Skip to content Art and Religion What do you think most contributes to the popularity and longevity of this book over the past decade?

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