Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large
I picked up my Sunday newspapers today wearing just knee-high striped American Apparel socks and a baggy boys T-shirt. And the weather today in London is shit. So a double score for me because today, for the first time, we got our Sunday papers delivered to the door. Result! While I was reading thru the news of the day, I saw that Masoud of Tank magazine has done another one of his O: fashion supplements for the Observer. This one is for men, and blow me if it isn't the best fashion supplement I have seen for a very long time. I began with a customary flick, and ended up spending half an hour with it. I liked the old-fashioned news pages, the way it was photographed, the paper, the shoots and most of all the cover story. Alexander McQueen is on the cover dressed as a furry cartoon rabbit looking at a furry life-sized fox whose head is sticking out of the top of a white transit van in a deserted carpark. Take from that what you will. The McQueen interview inside was fascinating, not least becasue Lee has outed himself as a Plushie (well, its a fun thought), but also because he says such moving things. Being at a McQueen show is always quite emotional for me (I've been at every women's show he has ever done bar three) you feel that his shows (when they are good) come straight from his sensitive twisted soul. We go back a long way. Back when we were kids in the mid nineties Lee introduced me to a girl I went out with for five years, and every time I see him his recall of the moment he made us snog is so vivid its almost like he is a time traveller. ANYWAY. So I'm going to transcribe the best things he said below, for your pleasure.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN..
..ON CREATING A COLLECTION
"It's an illusion in my head, and I start to visualise and then I keep going and going until I feel like I'm getting close to that illusion in my head. So usually I can forsee the show before I actually start designing the collection. Sometimes its a bit more erratic than that. Sometime's you've got an idea there and an idea there and they never meet, and sometimes you get a complete cock up."
..ON ADVERTISING
"I don't advertise. So the catwalk show is my form of advertising. Because if you're looking at style.com or anything like that, it lacks atmosphere. So what I try to create is a 15-minute moment in time that stays with you longer than any other show in Paris. Which then generates the press, the coverage that counts as my advertising. So I've always seen it as just using all that money I would otherwise use on advertising."
I never noticed that he didn't advertise. That's how effective his shows are. How mental.