The 20sec #FilmReview #McQueenFilm A Poignant and Honest Tribute to a Genius in #Fashion Making

“My shows are about sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. It’s for the excitement and the goosebumps.

I want heart attacks. I want ambulances.”

― Alexander McQueen

The British fashion designer Alexander McQueen encapsulated the madness and deep fears of mankind when commencing a new Millennia. It does not matter how dogmatic we claim to be; prophecies and the unknown is just round the corner. His craftsmanship and painful obsession to detail, plus a few demons that needed to come out, made him on of the most influential and charismatic fashion designers of our era. Like Balenciaga, there is no one like him. One-of-a-kind.

The film tactfully develops into a series of his own recordings, extracts from interviews of people that knew him well: Naomi Campbell, Detmar Blow — Isabella Blow’s widower who became his first mentor -, Janet McQueen, his sister, Sebastian Pons, a member of the McQueen team, and many other experts and professionals that closely knew him. And then…the catwalks… as if the magic and the darkness blends into a parallel Universe. His life, ups and downs, and the tragic and the comic. It is a superb eagle-eye’s account of McQueen Inc. Add that a soundtrack by Michael Nyman, one of his favourite composers, and it becomes a film to watch over and over again.

McQueen is a personal look at the extraordinary life, career and artistry of designer Alexander McQueen. Through exclusive interviews with his closest friends and family, recovered archives, exquisite visuals and music, McQueen is an authentic celebration and thrilling portrait of an inspired yet tortured fashion visionary. The film is directed by Ian Bonhôte and co-directed and written by Peter Ettedgui.

“Fashion is a big bubble and sometimes I just feel like popping it.”

― Alexander McQueen

Born and raised in East London’s working-class Stratford neighborhood, nothing in the background of Lee Alexander McQueen hinted at his future. The youngest of six children, Lee might have been expected to become a plumber, a bricklayer or perhaps a cab driver like his father. Instead, McQueen’s fierce romanticism and punk poetry helped create 1990s-era “Cool Britannia,” a celebration of youth culture in the U.K. For perhaps the first time since the Swinging Sixties, a lad from the East End of London could — and did — become one of the most original and influential artists of his time.

Presented in five chapters, McQueen highlights the pivotal moments in the designer’s life as expressed in some of his most personal and iconic shows: “Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims,” his 1992 graduate college collection; “Highland Rape,” his most controversial early show; “Search for the Golden Fleece,” the first collection he designed for fashion giant Givenchy; “Voss,” an exploration of beauty and madness. The final chapter, “Plato’s Atlantis.” charts the journey from the collection he dedicated to his great friend and muse Isabella Blow after she committed suicide, to the otherworldly final show he produced before he himself took his life.

It is a film that I highly recommend, even if you are not a fashionista, it will change the way you appreciate beauty.

For more information, please visit their website on www.McQueenFilm.co.uk

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