Alexander McQueen, Spring/Summer 2012.

My final S/S 2012 Fashion Week post! I'm now taking suggestions as to what I should write about after this. Ben-Seven suggested the theme of "top five movies, judging by costumes", which sounds damn near impossible because there are just so many choices. Although the #1 movie I saw this week was the Three Musketeers, which went something like this: 25% Orlando Bloom and Milla Jovovich gleefully over-acting at one another, 25% WTF airships, 25% D'Artagnan being unbearable, and 25% OMG THOSE DOUBLET & HOSE ARE AMAZING. Unfortunately, I think most of this film's audience were pre-teens and their parents who took the opportunity to nap for two hours in the cinema, so the internet is yet to provide me with the hi-res screencaps I've come to expect thanks to my recent cinematic diet of superhero movies with intense fanbases. Anyway, if you have any particular fashion-blogging requests, comment/message me! :)

McQueen wasn't as dazzling as last season, but this show definitely stretched the limits of "Ready To Wear". With this level of intricate beadwork, stitching and lace, Alexander McQueen is almost filling the gap left by the financial dissolution of Christian Lacroix last year.

Glam Batgirl.

This season, McQueen combines extreme feminity with monstrousness. Sarah Burton seems to have included fewer animalistic influences in this show than can be seen in some of McQueen's own later collections, but the masks and headdresses still lend an air of the sinister. Alexander McQueen designs have always been brilliant when it comes to evoking aggression without resorting to an appearance of masculinity.

pics from Style.com

With a lot of Sarah Burton/McQueen designs, you get the impression that if you kept zooming in on them then you'd uncover more and more levels of detail. This year the beaded masks were amazing, somehow managing to combine sparkly prettiness with the appearance of barnacles or some kind of organic growth.

(mask close-ups from NYMag.com)

Like Chanel, this show was based around an ocean theme, with frothy jellyfish dresses and hints of coral. I find it difficult to judge McQueen on the same terms as most designers, however, since most of these clothes are more suited to display rather than everyday life. Much Chanel's S/S 2012 collection was perfectly wearable -- providing you're richer than god and never go anywhere near dirt or cold weather -- but McQueen's gowns and masks are more suited to photoshoots, the occasional Lady Gaga video, and the New York Met's Savage Beauty exhibit.

 

Most of the looks were so ostentatious that they were Ready To Wear in name only, but that's very much in-keeping with McQueen's designs in the past. McQueen is one of the few major fashion houses that despite the economic downturn, continues to make art for art's sake rather than toning themselves down in the name of saleability -- and that's certainly worked out for them, because collections like this are headline grabbers and Sarah Burton was the one to make Kate Middleton's wedding dress this year. Why can't more designers go all-out like this?