It feels good to
finally wrap up the reviews of the Spring/Summer 2013 season. I must admit, I
haven’t been the most organised and despite being a month overdue, I can
conclude with the final instalment to this season. And of course, it is none
other than Alexander McQueen. If you follow me via Twitter, you may be
thinking; aren't you that guy who always seems to be moaning about Sarah Burton
ruining the McQueen label? Guilty as charged. However if you did notice that
the McQueen label sneakily appeared in my Resort 2013 reviews with an
overly-enthusiastic, positive reaction to the collection. (See the review
here.) With Spring/Summer
2013, my reaction remains the exact same and perhaps even more, if that is
possible! It’s October the 2
nd
and rather than socializing with people I've just met, I'm sitting in my
student dorm room, waiting impatiently for the photographs to load on
NowFashion.com of the latest McQueen S/S13 collection. As I sat and waited, my
fears and worries started to crawl their way in. What if it was a complete let
down? Coming from such a high of the Resort 2013 to be utterly shattered by one
collection; how would I even be able to process that? Then the first set of
looks appeared and I instantly fell in love. With the first model that stepped
onto the runway, those thoughts quickly vanished from my mind and I knew it was
only going to get better. Burton took inspiration from buzzing bees, working
away in their busy hives very much like the McQueen studios itself. The gold on
black honeycomb shapes translated into terms of jacquards, nets and laces which
some were embroidered with bees which created a varied amount of looks of
wasp-waist jackets with double-peplums constructed for the famous McQueen exaggeration
of the hips. "It was bringing back the silhouette of the house and
embracing the female form - the hip and bust. But there was a lightness to it.
It still felt erotic but not overt," Sarah Burton commented while jokingly
saying that "most women are worker bees." Structured and tight fitting pieces
of clothing began to undress and revealed corsets, traditional underpinnings
and cages demonstrated as equally beautiful evening wear dresses. But then
these dresses bloomed and the working bees of the McQueen studios had done
their job; ball gowns with bouquets of flowers bursting through the corsets and
lined around the floor length caged skirts shown in yellow, red and white. It was nothing short from complete show-stopping.
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