Go Lavish or Go Home

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Maybe it's all this talk of gemstones, beads and luxury that I'm hearing at the IHT LINK Jewellery Summit, here in Vienna, where I'm at right now (I was here to give my bum of a talk about social media to a crowd of 300+ blank faces – yay me!).  Maybe it's all the opulence of Palais Liechtenstein where we were last night for the LINK Summit gala and was surrounded by a heady mix of Swarovski jewellery, Rubens paintings and 18th century carriages.  Maybe it's just Vienna itself, in that wherever you look you get beauty and proportion of the highest order in the architecture.  For whatever reason, I decided to revisit these mind blowingdetails of the A/W 13-4 collection taken at the Alexander McQueen showroom in Paris back in March.

Sarah Burton could well have took it easy, made a simple collection and devoted more time to her newborn twins.  Instead she orchestrated the creation of a ten piece collection that warrants every bit of hyperbolic praise it has garnered.  "Go lavish or go home" was what I was thinking when I was in the showroom taking every single embroidered pearl in the collection.  Only one of the ten ensembles will actually go into production.  The point was therefore…?  Aside from the fact that Alexander McQueen has a wide-ranging sales collections filtered from this ten piece extravaganza, you kind of peversely hoped that there was no concrete or practical point really.  That this was a pure showcase of the very height of what the ateliers of McQueen can achieve.  That labouring two weeks on each ensemble was a holistic act of devotion to craftsmenship, intricate detailing and the very notion of adornment itself – something which more and more designers are resisting in favour of ease, simplicity and perceived minimalism.  Even the supposed Catholic references – there were five pairs of outfits entitled Communion, nuns, cardinals, popes, and angels – was really only surface deep.  I read no overt subversive comment on the Catholic church and god knows (excuse the reference) there's enough to get your teeth into to really let rip and get angry at in that religious context.  Instead it's the associations of pomp, pageantry and display in Catholicism that really got an outing here.  It's surface for surface's sake and that's a glorious thing to be in the presence of.  All you can do is… exclaim, exult and then finally exhale.    

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31 comments

  5. Thank you for getting me closer to heaven, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh* admiration, joy and faint…
    I am in Berlin at the moment. Are you passing by at all.
    XXXXXXXXX

  6. Oh my goodness, the shoes…the shoes are just beyond incredible. Wouldn’t it be nice to dress like this on a daily basis!? Mr McQueen sure was talented!
    x

  7. Hey Bubs,
    I recently discovered your blog and have been inhaling it for the past few days. Your posts are really thoughtful and just all omg this and omg that. Well done. That being said the LBJ is totes making me jeal jeal.

  8. OOpsies. I meant to write “NOT just all omg this omg that.” See? Already distracted.

  9. This is simply incredible. Exclusive pieces! The shoes are just so awesome. Your blog is awfully appealing. This is really a fascinating blog, lots of stuff that I can get into. Tremendous work with this blog.

  14. It’s collections like this that keep my passion for this industry burning. The artistry here is so profoundly beautiful that the garments become less pieces of clothing and more pieces of art. The skill of the people making this art is incredible, and that’s why it’s important that collections like this and like the haute couture collections, continue to exist. And not just exist but flourish!
    Thanks for posting these pictures, such a joy to see it again.
    xx
    http://thekirbybee.blogspot.com.au/

  22. It was such a beautiful collection, and the first time I’ve really liked Sarah Burton’s work at McQueen. I’d never expected to be so enamoured by caged headwear.

  24. According to me this article is beneficial particularly for women as they would get lots of varieties of designer handbags, and the book it online. Moreover the collection is very unique from others and this is really something worth of an art.

  28. Wow, these are amazingly detailed. What else do you expect from McQueen, though, except decadence and ornate details! These are all phenomenal, like art on fabric!

  29. Great post. I used to be checking constantly this blog and I’m inspired!
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