The Alexander McQueen Pre-Fall 2018 collection features military tailoring, dresses edged with undulating ruffles and hand-drawn prints inspired by the British Art Nouveau movement.
Moving between an un-tamed rural landscape steeped in fairytale tradition and legend and the glitter and gleam of city life, she takes inspiration from the contrasts between both. Her wardrobe is a reaction of that, drawing on the paradox between tailored elegance and decadent glamour; between embroidered military pea coats, capes, sartorial double-breasted pinstripes and sleek tuxedo dressing and ne lace, overblown, ruffled silks and liquid gowns dipped in metallic sequins.
Delicate tendrils, swooping, swirling lines, owers, leaves, animals and birds all feature. A Paisley motif references both Connemara shawls and Beardsley’s ink drawings: it is woven and embroidered across everything from uid lace dresses to corseted overcoats. In the case of the latter, one double-collared coat in particular is over-printed with black ink – masked – leaving only a Paisley curve around the collar, embroidered pockets and hem. No two versions of this piece are the same.
A zebra print wool silk velvet jacquard is mirrored and placed on a cocoon coat. Sharp military tailoring is deconstructed. Curvaceous, strong-shouldered trompe l’oeil wool silk tuxedo jackets are draped and pieced with lace and antique silk ta eta. Finely ru ed and pleated knitted dresses with sheer panelled skirts are engineered with ribbing or have cut away Art Nouveau bodices. They are worn with supple studded leather harnesses. Multi-coloured ru ed knitted and silk babydoll dresses are shot through with metal l coupé embroideries or patterned with beguiling oral nudes. Perfecto jackets are layered over slender gowns, again cut away at the shoulders and torso, tenderly tracing the lines of the body. Jet embroidered harnesses curve over draped lace. Exotic iris corsages are scattered across silk creponne sheer evening gowns dipped in sequins.
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