Alexander McQueen Issues Zine on Artist Collaborations
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Alexander McQueen continues to explore nontraditional mediums to showcase the brand’s new collection.
For the pre-fall 2022 season, the brand issued a 160-page zine documenting the creative process of 12 artists who were invited by the brand’s creative director, Sarah Burton, to express their working practices each inspired by a look from the women’s collection.
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An installation will be launched on Tuesday at the brand’s Old Bond Street flagship, showing the artworks alongside the pieces that inspired them.
Artists who participated in the project included Ann Cathrin November Høibo, Beverly Semmes, Bingyi, Cristina de Middel, Guinevere van Seenus, Hope Gangloff, Marcia Kure, Jackie Nickerson, Jennie Jieun Lee, Judas Companion, Marcela Correa and Marcia Michael.
Correa, a sculptor based in Chile, created a series of models built as three-dimensional collages based on glued paper, magazine clippings, epoxy resin and fiberglass, and painted them yellow for the collaboration. Her creations were inspired by the opening look of the pre-collection, a pop yellow off-the-shoulder corset dress with an exploded neckline and sleeves, and bone detailing.
Model and photographer van Seenus, who walked for the brand several times, produced images on film and Polaroid, with additional beading added to them. Her project was inspired by look seven, a strapless corset dress in crushed silver poly faille.
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The same dress has also inspired Brazilian documentary photographer de Middel on shooting the short film “Some Walls Are Not Political,” to voice her support for female empowerment.
“I always found it very disturbing the concept of a housewife because both house and wife are ideas linked to control and limitation. When being a woman does not necessarily mean being a wife anymore and when a house can be OK without being home for someone else, I created this piece combining and redefining the house space, the idea of femininity, and reflecting on the metamorphosis that comes with the end of a tradition and the birth of the new domestic,” she said.
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Some artists’ works are more tangible, such as the vessel created by the New York-based Lee. Its firing glazing surface imitates the red leather dress worn by the model Wang in the look book.
“Combining the intoxicating features of the leather dress, which is steeped in hues of dyed reds to deep burgundy, along with the metallic aspects of the ring onto the body of the ceramic work, I hope to invoke the emotions felt by the woman who gets to wear this chosen garment in her life’s moments,” she said.
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While British artist Michael interpreted the final look, a corset dress with jet embroidered straps and bone detailing, into a sculpture that took four steps to complete. She first 3D printed the figure in a pose, and then she applied wax to the figure. After that, she figure-cast it in jesmonite stone and later added color and embellishments to it.
“The second part is a very tactile process where I literally used my hands to form the presence that wants to come forth. Using wax allows my fingerprints to be imprinted, furthering the connection between the past I reclaim with the present I embody. I adopt this approach to ground it in a presence and strength of character, to connect my body and breath to the figure, which is milder with my hands, and to perform and be invoked in a form of ritual,” she explained.
The zine will be distributed to visitors to the stores, as well as mailed to key customers worldwide.
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