Alexander McQueen Spring 2011

Vogue 2011
Lily Donaldson, Sasha Pivovarova, Caroline Trentini, Miirte Maas, Patricia van der Vliet

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SARAH BURTON 4 MC Q

SARAH BURTON took on a great challenge tonight in presenting the first Alexander McQueen catwalk collection since the designer Lee’s death in February and the result was a show laden with emotion that was made even more remarkable because of how right she got it.

The sparse, stripped back presentation of a standard catwalk in the Palais de Tokyo, on bare floorboards with grass emerging from between them, immediately set an entirely different approach to the McQueen spectaculars for which he was so famous and so celebrated.

As well as acting as a fitting, respectful setting, the format made the statement that this was something starting anew. It also acted as a natural starting point for a collection inspired by nature that, while it was full of McQueen trademarks and ideas, had a very different and far more optimistic sensibility about it.

Burton said before the show that she didn’t feel she was as dark as McQueen, and the dresses today – featuring the same McQueen exaggerated, stiffened silhouettes – had a lightness of subject matter despite being as brilliantly and painstakingly constructed. Gold painted corn ears made up incredible regal dresses with trains of pheasant feathers, stunning butterfly print dresses had feathery butterflies clustering out of the necklines and silk ivy coated in black or gleaming gold grew around nude sheaths.

Bandaged chiffon dresses fell in degradé from black to cream or featured age-burnt sepia prints, dramatic sleeveless cream waistcoats had manes of horsehair swinging down the back and heavy gold brocade suits had dressage fringing at the neck and hems.

White broderie anglaise dresses featuring beautiful sculpted corset belts of stiff golden leaves and white military frock coats or fit and flare dresses of rich colourful brocades had splits at each shoulder or open seams down the inside of the arm. Nothing was quite as it seemed on first glimpse – which is always the McQueen way.

“I thought it was amazing and as if the McQueen woman had been unshackled somehow, she was freer than before,” said Alexandra Shulman. “Sarah’s done brilliantly – and now it will be interesting to see where she moves it on from here because the McQueen woman was rather complicated and dark - and there was nothing dark about that collection.”

Michael Jackson’s I’ll Be There played Burton out to her standing ovation and us back out into the Parisian rain, many in tears - the extraordinary poignancy of the Alexander McQueen story once again breathtaking.

via vogue.co.uk