The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is set to hold a major exhibition of the late designer’s fashion creations.

The exhibition “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” will run from 4th May to 31st July & will have a Gala launch on 2nd May. It will feature more than a hundred examples of McQueen’s work spanning his 19 year career in fashion design.

Stella McCartney - who was a close friend of the designer - will co-chair the exhibition.

Thomas Campbell, the director of the Met, and Andrew Bolton, curator of its Costume Institute, spoke highly of the artistic merits of the late designer’s work. “His work fits so easily within the discourse of art,” said Campbell. “He can be considered no less than an artist whose medium of expression was fashion.”

Bolton said: “His fashions were an outlet for his emotions, an expression of the deepest, often darkest, aspects of his imagination. He was a true romantic in the Byronic sense of the word – he channeled the sublime.”

The exhibition will be organized according to theme rather than in chronological order. The exhibition will begin with a gallery named The Savage Mind, & include another named Romantic Gothic which will be centred around the Romantic literary themes of melancholy death & decay which so absorbed him..

Included will be his 1994 Nihilism collection, the McQueen tartan from his Highland Rape collection & his posthumous Angels & Demons collection shown last year.

The exhibition will also feature a small projection of the Kate Moss Hologram which featured in 2006 following the scandal over her cocaine use,

With London fashion week under way it was the ideal time for the preview of the upcoming exhibition which has been unveiled at the Ritz. The venue is deliberate. It was here in 1993 that McQueen first showed his collection of designs at his graduate fashion show ‘Taxi Driver’ based on the film of the same name. It was the first of what were to become eagerly anticipated shows; unconventional, unpredictable, extraordinary extravaganzas of highly imaginative performance and design.

The preview – which was unveiled by Anna Wintour and Samantha Cameron, was also attended by Stella McCartney - who will co-chair the exhibition - & Sarah Burton who worked with McQueen for 14 years & is now creative director for the label. Cameron said she was “thrilled by this recognition of British fashion”.

McQueen was considered by many to be at the forefront of world fashion with his innovative designs which pushed the boundaries and raised the profile of the British fashion industry.

Posted: February 24th, 2011 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

On Sunday Victoria Beckham gave her fashion show presentation as part of New York fashion week.

Initially, not taken seriously by the fashion world when she first made her foray into the arena of fashion design, she now has five successful seasons behind her & despite the recent recession her designs have been a sell out with demand far outstripping supply & the balance sheets to prove it. Figures for November show that orders for her dress collection are 64% higher than last year! Last autumn Beckham was nominated for her first British Fashion Award alongside industry giants.

Five months pregnant with her fourth child, she wore a loose cashmere draped dress for the presentation. Her unique, now familiar style of intimate presentations at which she talks through each design have proved popular with audiences, & inspirational for other designers.

The collection she presented featured longer lengths & pleats, loose draped styles – one featuring over 4 metres of draped fabric - as well as austere shapes – designs that may have been less well received prior to her phenomenal success in the fashion world. She was quoted as saying as much herself: “I’ve had to wait until now to do this. People just wouldn’t have understood it before.” There were four coat designs – all with sleek, skinny arms. One featured a giant buckle at the neck. Vibrant colours such as magenta & saffron featured strongly during her show.

Her designs have garnered her a celebrity clientele who are flocking to buy them; Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cameron Diaz, Demi Moore & Jennifer Hudson among them. They could be about to be joined by Kate Middleton, whose engagement to Prince William was announced back in November. Beckham is reported to have said that her family have requested to see a selection of dresses from her previous collection. “Apparently, she likes my clothes and has asked to see a selection. It will be from my current spring/summer collection. It’s tremendously exciting and I would be honored if she were to wear my designs. I admire her tremendously. She’s a beautiful young girl, she has a wonderful figure and I think she wears clothes beautifully.”

As well as interest in reporting on her latest designs at New York fashion week, newspapers have been rife with stories speculating on the sex of Victoria & David Beckham’s fourth child. Despite the tabloids claiming that they are expecting a girl this time around, Victoria says they have no idea as yet, though she says her sons are crossing their fingers for another brother! “I can go on the record and say, contrary to rumours, I do not know the sex of my baby. We feel so lucky and so blessed.

“We know what to do with a boy. The kids are excited about having a little brother to teach how to play soccer … But, if it’s a girl, we’d be over the moon as well”

Posted: February 15th, 2011 under Victoria Beckham.
Comments: none

Bags made by luxury goods brand, Louis Vuitton can cost between £425 & £2,400, but according to an advertising watchdog, the consumer is being misled into believing the bags to be handmade.

Popular with the rich & famous, the monogrammed bags are marketed by the French firm as being handcrafted, but after following up on complaints suggesting that the bags were not entirely handmade, the Advertising Standards Agency banned the two adverts in question.

The offending adverts were in the style of Renaissance paintings & used two photographs depicting craftswomen at work, one painstakingly stitching the handle of a handbag, while the other made folds in a wallet.

The first of these was captioned: “The seamstress with linen thread and beeswax”, with further text stating, “A needle, linen thread, beeswax and infinite patience protect each overstitch from humidity and the passage of time… With so much attention lavished on every one, should we only call them details?”

The second advert carried the text: ‘The young woman and the tiny folds. In everything from Louis Vuitton, there are elements that cannot be fully explained. ‘

‘What secret little gestures do our craftsmen discretely pass on? How do we blend innate skill and inherent prowess?

‘Or how can five tiny folds lengthen the life of a wallet? Let’s allow these mysteries to hang in the air. Time will provide the answers.’

When challenged, the company admitted that it used sewing machines for some of the work as they rendered the products ‘more secure and (were) necessary for strength, accuracy and durability’.

An ASA spokesperson said, “We noted that the images were stylised interpretations of real stages of the production process of both of the items featured.” However, with regard to the first advert, the Advertising Standards Agency ‘considered that consumers would interpret the image of a woman using a needle and thread to stitch the handle of a bag in the ad to mean that Louis Vuitton bags were hand-stitched’. Likewise they felt that the image of the woman making the wallet implied to customers that it was almost entirely hand crafted.

The company said that there were over a hundred stages involved in the production of each item & that the adverts paid ‘homage to the craftsmanship’ of its two hundred employees who were trained over many years in order to carry out the various activities. While it provided the ASA with evidence of many hand crafting techniques being used in the production of the goods, the design house declined to disclose what proportion of its work was carried out by hand.

The ASA stated,  ’We noted that we had not seen documentation that detailed the entire production process for Louis Vuitton products or that showed the proportion of their manufacture that was carried out by hand or by machine.

‘Because we had not seen evidence that demonstrated the extent to which Louis Vuitton products were made by hand, we concluded that the ads were misleading.’

The outcome was obviously a setback for the one hundred & fifty six year old French firm - whose sales grossed £1.7 million last year - but they stated that they supported the ASA & would adhere to its ruling.

Posted: May 27th, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

For the first time since entering the world of fashion design, Victoria Beckham’s latest collection has met with almost universal critical acclaim.

Initially, not taken seriously by the fashion world when she first made her foray into the arena of fashion design, she has - after only four seasons - proved herself worthy through the quality of the clothes she has designed and consumer demand for them. There is an almost one hundred per cent sell out at all the international outlets that stock her designs - despite the recession & the huge price tickets - and she now has a celebrity clientele who are flocking to buy them. Among the latter can be numbered Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cameron Diaz, Demi Moore & Jennifer Hudson.

Rather than showing her collection via a traditional fashion show, Beckham this year decided to make intimate presentations at which she talked through each design. The dresses in the eveningwear collection were inspired by the 1930’s & 1940’s but with a modern twist. She also talked about wanting a much more natural look, moving away from ‘the fake tan & big hair’. There has been some criticism that she used super skinny models to show her collection. However, she has recently joined the campaign against fashion houses using underweight models, & with regard to the criticism levelled at her, claimed that some models were just naturally thin. Beckham has herself faced disapproval in the past regarding her emaciated appearance, which raised questions as to whether she might suffer from an eating disorder. She has always denied this.

She may have started her celebrity life as a singer/performer in The Spice Girls, but Beckham is adamant that fashion design is where she sees her future. Its what she really wants to do. She says she is aware of her shortcomings in terms of technical know how, but that she is prepared to learn the techniques. She is passionate about what she is achieving creatively & says she feels professionally fulfilled by it.

Beckham’s company headquarters are in London where the entire collection is made, but the family are settled in Los Angeles & are not planning to move back to England. With her husband currently out of action in the football world due to an injury of his Achilles’ tendon, it is rumoured that they will be using the time constructively in an attempt to add to the family!

Posted: March 17th, 2010 under Victoria Beckham.
Comments: none