Asylum

Alexander McQueen was one of my very favorite designers. His clothes always had an eccentric macabre twist to them, which I loved and he put so much into everything he made, technically and with passion. He was very creative and each of his shows were amazing to watch, I wish I were there in person.

“I like blowing people’s minds. It’s a buzz. Like a fix, for 20 minutes. I like the spontaneity of doing it there and then. We broke the mold by not using the fashion-show-production people. I found Sam Gainsbury, who’d been doing pop video. So it became more cinematic.” -- Alexander McQueen

One of my favourites, though, would have to be his Spring/Summer 2001 collection called Asylum.

"For the Spring/Summer 2001 Asylum collection the audience sat around a mirrored cube forced to stare at themselves for a whole hour. When finally lit from inside, the cube revealed itself to be a mental-hospital holding cell. Demented girls, wearing hospital headbands and everything from extraordinary mussel-shell skirts to impossibly chic pearl-colored cocktail dresses, slithered and strutted while uselessly attempting to fly over the cuckoo’s nest. There were gothic, theatrical pieces, like a dress with a miniature castle and rat posing as a shoulder pad; a top made out of a jigsaw puzzle; and a huge feathered creation with stuffed eagles suspended over the model’s head, poised to attack à la Hitchcock. But amidst all the insanity, there was a cornucopia of startlingly elegant — and wearable — pantsuits, flouncy party dresses, and even a spectator pump or two."

"How to top off such a climactic presentation? After everyone thought it was all over, another cube within the psychiatric ward-cum-runway opened up to reveal a nude Michelle Olley, her face covered by a mask, breathing through a tube, surrounded by fluttering moths. It was a truly shocking and enthralling tableau: Francis Bacon via Leigh Bowery and Lucien Freud. In a word, sublime."

This part of his show was inspired by a Joel-Peter witkin photograph called Sanitarium (1983). (Read more about him in my Honey page.)

“Ha! I was really pleased about that. I was looking at it on the monitor, watching everyone trying not to look at themselves. It was a great thing to do in the fashion industry — turn it back on them! God, I’ve had some freaky shows.” – McQueen on forcing his audience to stare at their own reflection for over an hour

http://bpsmoodboard.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/mcqueen-asylum/