Sunday, November 7, 2010

Alexander McQueen S/S '99

Few designers can execute fashion as art and fashion as fashion at the same time as well as Alexander McQueen. It was a tragic loss for the fashion world when McQueen made his departure. Fashion lost its star performer. Some designers have tried and failed to make their shows as much of an experience as McQueen's. Hussein Chalayan's older shows are among the successful few.

For McQueen's Spring/Summer 1999 runway show, two mechanical robots were stationed around legendary model, Shalom Harlow on a spinning wooden platform. A sense of suspense was built up by the way the robots pensively moved, as if they were contemplating what they should do. When a decision is reached, the way the model reacts is up to our own interpretation. The story is given to us and we are the creators of what is actually happening. It takes a true artist to involve his or her viewer without literally interacting with them. A bond was born between anyone who attended Mcqueen's S/S '99 show, and anyone who ever watches this video.