Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
From the Publisher. Alexander McQueen (British, 1969–2010) was one of the most influential, imaginative, and provocative designers of his generation. His clothing both challenged and expanded the conventional parameters of fashion to express ideas about culture, politics, and identity. Rare among designers, McQueen saw beyond clothing’s physical constraints to its ideological and conceptual possibilities, addressing questions related to race, class, gender, religion, sexuality, and the environment.
Featuring the most iconic and radical designs of his prolific career, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty examines the designer’s evolution from the start of his fledgling label, to his years as creative director at Givenchy in Paris, and finally to the collections of his own world-renowned London house. It reveals how McQueen adapted and combined the fundamentals of Savile Row tailoring, the specialized techniques of haute couture—such as lacework, embroidery, and featherwork—and technological innovation to achieve his distinctive aesthetic. It also focuses on the highly sophisticated narrative structures found in McQueen’s collections and in his extravagant runway presentations, which suggested the most avant-garde installation and performance art.
Published on the occasion of an exhibition organized by the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute, this book includes a preface by curator Andrew Bolton; an introduction by Susannah Frankel; an interview with Sarah Burton, creative director of the house of Alexander McQueen, conducted by Tim Blanks; and illuminating commentary from the designer himself. Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty celebrates the astounding creativity and originality of a designer who relentlessly questioned and confronted the requisites of fashion.
Like a relic from a saint, this book companion to the astonishing 2011 Metropolitan Museum exhibition is a fragment of a much greater entity. It’s worth having anyway. McQueen’s jagged silhouettes and maniacal feather- or crustacean-encrusted pieces are inexhaustible in their visual interest, and the catalogue lets you study them at leisure, focusing on details like locks of hair sewn into dresses inspired by Jack the Ripper’s victims. Most important, you can read about the doomed enfant terrible who produced them without crowds of gawping museum-goers pressing you to hurry up.
One of the most inspiring designers of our time. Some amazing collections in this book.
The work of this extraordinary designer deserves to be immortalized.
Announcements
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture by Moshe Safdie
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture
By Moshe Safdie
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
Published: September 2022
One of the world’s greatest and most thoughtful architects recounts his extraordinary career and the iconic structures he has built—from Habitat in Montreal to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore—and offers a manifesto for the role architecture should play in society.
.jpg)
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
.png)
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Milton Glaser: POP: by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
.png)
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman
Women Holding Things
By Maira Kalman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: October 2022
In the spring of 2021, Maira and Alex Kalman created a small, limited-edition booklet, “Women Holding Things,” which featured select recent paintings by Maira, accompanied by her insightful and deeply personal commentary. The booklet quickly sold out. Now, the Kalmans have expanded that original publication into an extraordinary visual compendium. We see a woman hold a book, hold shears, hold children, hold a grudge, hold up, hold her own. In visually telling their stories, Kalman lays bare the essence of women’s lives—their tenacity, courage, vulnerability, hope, and pain.
Popular NowWeekMonth
- One Book and Why: Graphic Designer Stefan Sagmeister Recommends . . .
- Quote of the Day: Deborah Berke & Begin Again
- One Book and Why: Architect Thom Mayne Recommends . . .
- One Book and Why: Graphic Designer Louise Fili Recommends . . .
- One Book and Why: Architect Steven Holl Recommends . . .
Recent Articles
