Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating exhibition at Tate Britain of photographs by Nick Waplington following Alexander McQueen creating his Autumn/Winter 2009 collection. McQueen commissioned Waplington to do this to create a photo book. As the show used ideas from throughout McQueen’s career and subverted them often using items of rubbish in their construction or making them to look like rubbish e.g. dresses made to look like bin bags but in amazing fabrics. The photos are shown alongside Waplington’s large scale photographs of recycling plants. The photos from the design studio show first fittings right through to the moments before the catwalk show. The commentary and texts on the wall come from a conversation between Waplington and the fashion writer, Susannah Frankel who helped document the process for the planned book. The pictures show all the team at the studio and give an image of a happy creative atmosphere. This was a wonderful foil to the V&A block buster show as it gives a rea...

Review of the sumptuous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of the work of Alexander McQueen. I am a sucker for this sort of lavish fashion exhibition and this one of the best I’ve seen! The whole thing was a mix of exhibition and installation. I know the galleries it was held in well but the space was transformed and felt very different. Each section had a theme which cut across his collections and was set up on a different stage set. The whole thing was accompanied by great quotes from McQueen illuminating his ideas such as “I’m not big of women looking naïve.” The clothes themselves were amazing and it was lovely o see them close up and realise the high levels of tailoring and skill involved. I loved his allusions to art history including a grey evening dress patterned with the angel from the Portinari Altarpiece and a jacket made of fabric printed with a Campin triptych. The centerpiece was a great use of the high room at the back of the gallery to create...