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Health & Fitness

Fashion as Art, or Art of Fashion?

McQueen, Savage Beauty, Metropolitan Museum of Art

So unless you frequent the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or are up on fashion, you may not know about the shocking lines to see the Savage Beauty exhibit at the Met, a retrospective of the work of the late Alexander McQueen. It ended its record-breaking run Sunday at midnight with over 650,000 people viewing, 15,000 on Saturday alone.

 Not since the Mona Lisa viewing have there been lines snaking out the door, into Central Park. All to look at five rooms of clothes. But it was so much more. And by more, I don't mean just the videos. I mean the soul of a man, laid bare, a very troubled man, a tortured artist, who chose to express himself in fabric.

 But why the crowds? I asked myself that as I forked over membership dollars a couple weeks ago in order to bypass the line with my daughters after waiting a half hour to find we may not get to see it at all. Some think it was the recent PR his company got for making the Duchess of Windsor's wedding gown, but that wouldn't make most people que up for four hours, and those people would be quite shocked to see the only wedding gown on display had antlers poking through a $2,000 veil (it was pretty cool, a lot better than the Duchess's get up last summer.)

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  I loved McQueen. He was always a favorite in his use of true tailoring-meets-the-fantatsic, in his showmanship, in his outsider genius status, and most of all, in his belief woman should always be presented as strong beings to be reckoned with, not fancy kept objects, fragile fairies, or sexpots who could never hold a job. His suicide was such a tragic end, like news of the death of Kurt Cobain. You realized there will never be anyone like that again, and their future work is gone forever. But why the sea of humanity around me? Men, women, some kids other than mine. Many in the crowd were not from the United States, many were a little flummoxed with the metallic armadillo shaped shoes, but many were also in shock, jaws dropped, that one person did all this so early in their career, and were awestruck.

  Many were like me - fans who only saw his work through he pages of magazines or Internet images  that never live up to the absolute splendor of standing next to a gown made completely of shellacked razor clam shells. Or a coat perfectly tailored from thousands of gold painted duck feathers - a coat that would garner the reaction "Wow, that's beautiful" AND "You look fantastic" in the same sentence. While you were covered with painted duck feathers. And for every fantastical work, there was a perfectly tailored coat that could walk down any street without causing mayhem, a plaid dress that would look completely acceptable at grannie's at christmas, a dress made from human hair...okay, never mind.

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  Almost every single sillouette in the show was flatterng, even the most extreme. McQueen said he designed from the side of the body "..with all the bumps and curves and lumps" to get the most flattering line. Well, it worked, and it spawned a giant if not always wanted movement. His low-rise pants, called 'bumsters', invaded the international zeitgeist, making jeans that barely cover rears the norm. And his Audrey Hepburn on an Angry Bender look influenced the tough/feminine hybrid we see everywhere in fashion these days, without ever being a derivative flashback of fashion's past. But as I poured over every seam with my kids, and watched the videos of mechanical robots painting model Shalom Harlow's white dress like true modern art, I wondered if everyone there felt the same way. 

  McQueen said he started designing a collection off the idea of what the show would be, not what would sell. Or what trends would be hot, or what fabric he wanted to use. He wanted to make a statement. Is that fashion design? Isn't that art? Maybe that's why everyone was there - art can intimidate, but not clothes. We all wear clothes, don't we? We don't need an education in fine art to view a jacket - we wore one just the other day. Maybe clothing is more acceptable to translate into thoughtful expression than everyone thinks, and maybe those who thumb their noses at the idea anything from the Costume Institute should be hidden in the basement (this was the first time the Met brought it above ground) have had a mental redo.

  McQueen believed in fashion for the masses, even if he couldn't produce it at a low enough cost to make it happen, he video streamed his shows, including the last one, that sent servers crashing with the amount of hits. While most designers are obsessed with keeping exclusive viewership, he was tired of showing to the same room of editors, and wanted the world to see what he'd come up with, and decided to forgo a runway show altogether. For me, the Met show inspired me to tackle what's next in my work, to put it out there, and to see what happens. I just wish Mr. McQueen could have seen the lines streaming down the streets. Maybe he'd still be with us if he had.

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