Beyond Fashion: The Met's "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty"

The Met's exhibit Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty closed recently after breaking many attendance's records for the museum. A friend, describing the exhibit as "a visual concert," prompted me to visit the museum to see it for myself. If you missed it the above video is the closest you'll have to attending the lavishly curated and presented collection. 

From the museum's catalog: 

The exhibition, organized by The Costume Institute, celebrates the late Alexander McQueen's extraordinary contributions to fashion. From his Central Saint Martins postgraduate collection of 1992 to his final runway presentation, which took place after his death in February 2010, Mr. McQueen challenged and expanded the understanding of fashion beyond utility to a conceptual expression of culture, politics, and identity. His iconic designs constitute the work of an artist whose medium of expression was fashion. The exhibition will feature approximately one hundred ensembles and seventy accessories from Mr. McQueen's prolific nineteen-year career. Drawn primarily from the Alexander McQueen Archive in London, with some pieces from the Givenchy Archive in Paris as well as private collections, signature designs including the "bumster" trouser, the kimono jacket, and the three-point "origami" frock coat will be on view. McQueen's fashions often referenced the exaggerated silhouettes of the 1860s, 1880s, 1890s, and 1950s, but his technical ingenuity always imbued his designs with an innovative sensibility that kept him at the vanguard.

Beyond fashion, what the exhibit represented for me was the work of a cultural remixer expressing his ideas via haute couture. In his video series Everything is a Remix Kirby Ferguson talks of artists copying, transforming and combining ideas to create new works that are remixes of ideas past. Every single garment presented in the exhibit embodied that philosophy.