It’s fairly early in London as Robert Fairer and I examine a photograph he took at the Alexander McQueen autumn-winter show in March 2006 in Paris. In the image, four pairs of hands are seen working on a dress from The Widows of Culloden —the McQueen show most people would remember for the ethereal holographic apparition of Kate Moss. “When Nafisa [Tosh] saw this picture, she went, ‘Ah Robert, I’m in that picture!’ And I looked and went, ‘No’. And she said ‘No, no, I’m under that dress’,” narrates Fairer over a Zoom call.
A few days later, Tosh, the designer and tailor who worked directly with McQueen in the 2000s, connects the dots: “Whilst we were in the London atelier, a zip on the dress broke because of the weight of the fabric—it weighed about 20 kilos. And Lee said, ‘Make sure you change the zip on the corset as well.’ We thought it was fine, but 20 minutes before the model was due to go onto the runway, the zip burst. I had to get underneath the dress and hold the corset panels together. It was pure panic, but I think it’s number one in my fashion moments backstage.”
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The image in question, along with scores of others, is now being showcased as part of the “Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse” exhibition at the NGV in Melbourne (through April 16). “These are my favourite kind of images” says Fairer, who witnessed and photographed 30 of 36 of McQueen’s collections between 1992 and 2010. “When the models are three-quarters in, everything is covered up, you go in and just get that last minute when the arms are in the air, zips are being pulled up—it just makes for elegant, beautiful photographs,” he adds.
The first major McQueen exhibition to be staged in Australia by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), in collaboration with the NGV, “Mind, Mythos, Muse” places the work of the maverick designer by painstakingly assembling over 120 garments and the many historical artworks and artefacts that inspired him, along with photographs and videos—in the halls of Australia’s oldest arts museum.
A sprawling examination of Lee ‘Alexander’ McQueen's oeuvre, the exhibition is a journey that tells the story not only of the once-in-a-generation designer’s awe-inspiring collections and theatrical showmanship, but also the more complex tale of his practice, of seeking inspiration from far-reaching sources that characterised his design.
“Art always inspired Lee,” says Tosh, who specialised in heavy construction—owing to the training she received from her Surat-born father who was a tailor, and the many years she spent working for a plethora of London-based designers such as Elizabeth Emanuel and Jasper Conran. “When we were developing collections, he would have mood boards all around us. We literally lived and breathed the artworks and it had a real emotional impact on the design.” She recalls working on the Widows of Culloden collection, surrounded with Scottish paintings and the Schindler’s List theme playing in the background for hours on end; which came to be the soundtrack of the show.
The exploration, put together by curators Katie Sommerville and Danielle Whitfield, transpires across four themes on the ground level of the NGV. The first, titled ‘Mythos’, explores McQueen’s use of religious and mythological iconography across three collections. Pieces from Angels and Demons (autumn-winter 2010) are exhibited in a darkened room with projections on the ceiling, red fire imagery on one side and blue skies on the other. Diaphanous dresses from Neptune (spring-summer 2006), which draw upon Classical imagery, stand tall on plinths in a white room with mirrored walls.
This is followed by ‘Fashioned Narratives’, the section that illustrates McQueen’s talent for storytelling and worldbuilding with four collections including In Memory of Elizabeth How, Salem, 1692 (autumn-winter 2007) and The Widows of Culloden. Each of these collections reimagined past events and told stories—both encyclopaedic and autobiographical—in the form of sensational shows. “I call the showpieces my girls,” she says. “I hadn't seen the girls for 16 years, it had a very deep emotional impact on me because I had spent night and day working on those gowns for several weeks.”
The penultimate theme of ‘Evolution and Existence’ inspects McQueen’s fascination with life cycles and the human condition, with collections such as The Horn of Plenty (autumn-winter 2009) which critiqued mass consumerism; and Deliverance (spring-summer 2004), and his final completed collection, Plato’s Atlantis (spring-summer 2010), which envisioned a world consumed by the ocean.
‘Technique and Innovation’ concludes the show, which features garments from collections like the breakout Highland Rape (autumn-winter 1995), where models stormed the runway with bare breasts in slashed tartan and lace (the show that put McQueen on the map for his creative directorship at Givenchy the following year). The section focuses on showcasing McQueen’s technical abilities in garment construction and his way of approaching the female form through fluid drapery, ideas of eroticism and empowerment–as well as his use of unique surface treatments, savage cutting, and emerging technologies such as digital printing.
“With Lee, it was far more intense than anywhere else I’ve worked,” recalls Tosh. “He spent a lot of time in the studio so there was a lot of interaction and discussion. Unlike other designers I’ve worked for, there was no middleman. He spoke with the technicians directly, and there was a lot of chopping of dresses in half and me crying when he did that,” laughs Tosh. “Sometimes we would get fabrics and embroidered panels from India a day or two before the show and start constructing. At other studios you would have three or four interns but when I was at McQueen, there were about 80 to 100.”
The exhibit also shows video footage from McQueen’s iconic runway presentations including the 1992 graduate collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks his Victims and Shalom Harlow being spray-painted by robotic arms in No. 13. Elsewhere, a whole hallway is dedicated to blown-up prints of photographs captured by Fairer. “The McQueen backstage was very different to any other show you might go to. It was a hive of activity, concentration, and creativity. There was no air kissing, champagne sipping, or idle chit-chat,” he remembers.
Picture a row of sewing machines and dresses on mannequins—not just for finishing touches but for real construction that went on in the last few hours before the show. In some cases it was dark, as if going back to a Dickensian era. “I’ve used these words a lot but... it was raw, it was visceral,” he adds.
Fairer, along with his wife Vanessa, now has the monumental task of digitising over 30,000 images in his archive. Towards the end of our call, he holds up his book, Alexander McQueen: Unseen, turned to a collage of the designer in a bunny costume from Natural Dis-tinction Un-natural Selection (spring-summer 2009). The show was held in an art space that was once a Paris morgue, filled with antique taxidermy. In the images, when he takes the bunny head off, McQueen is seen smiling. “When you see portraits of McQueen, they tend to be quite serious, but there was also this joyous side. And you can see his explosive joy after a great show and he’s happy. I was very fortunate to get that photograph and that’s how I like to remember him.”
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“Our main aim is now to share the creative genius with the younger generation who weren’t as fortunate as us to witness them first-hand,” says Fairer sitting in front of a wall of negatives from various shows and shoots up until 2007. With its vast scope, “Mind, Mythos, Muse” allows us to see a unique visionary’s perspective on life brought together in one place.
“Lee was willing to bring in new ideas and he listened to people. He worked directly with the technicians and valued our experience, background and knowledge. The show with Shalom and the robots, nobody knew if it was going to work because it hadn’t been tested. He was open to everything, and challenged other designers, which is perhaps why he is referenced even today,” says Tosh. He had a hunger for “new ideas, new fabrics, new ways of working. Fearlessness and embracing new technology— that may be Lee’s biggest legacy.”
Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse will be on display till 16 April 2023 at NGV International, St Kilda Road, Melbourne.
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