1 / 56 Metropolitan Museum of Art Alexander Mcqueen: Savage Beauty Audio Guide Press Script Narrator: Andrew Bolton Voices: Sara

Metropolitan Museum of Art Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty Audio Guide Press Script

Narrator: Andrew Bolton Voices: Sarah Jessica Parker, Naomi Campbell, Sarah Burton, Aimee Mullins, Shalom Harlow, Louise Wilson, Sam Gainsbury, Annabelle Nielsen, Philip Treacy, Shaun Leane, Trino Verkade, Tiina Laaokonen, Mira Chai Hyde, John Gosling, Michelle Olley

400 Exhibition Introduction [LINK TO 450] 450 Level 2: McQueen Biography 401 Dress, VOSS, 2001 (page 75) 402 Introduction: The Romantic Mind 403 Coat, Jack the Ripper, 1992 (page 32) 404 Jacket, Nihilism, 1994 (page 38) [LINK TO 451] 451 Level 2: McQueen’s Early Years 405 Bumster Trouser, Highland Rape, 1995-6 (page 5) 406 Dress, Plato’s Atlantis, Spring/Summer 2010 (page 43) 407 Introduction: Romantic Gothic 408 Dress, Horn of Plenty, 2009-10 (page 72) 409 Corset, Dante, 1996-7 (page 82) 410 Angels/Demons Collection, 2010-11(pages 93-101) 411 Introduction: Cabinet of Curiosities 412 Dress, No. 13, 1999, White Cotton spray-painted dress (page 217) 413 Shaun Leane, Coiled Corset, The Overlook, 1999-2000 (page 200) 414 Shaun Leane, Face Disc, Irere, 2003 (pages 208-209) 415 Ensemble and Prosthetic Leg, No. 13, 1999 (pages 220-223) [LINK TO 452] 452 Level 2: Aimee Mullins Continued 416 Shaun Leane, Spine Corset, 1998, page 202 417 Philip Treacy, Headdress (bird), The Girl Who Lived in the Tree,

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autumn/winter 2008-9 (pages 205-5) 418 Armadillo Boot, Plato’s Atlantis, Spring/Summer 2010 (pages 212-13) 419 Philip Treacy, Hat of turkey feathers painted and shaped to look like butterflies, La Dame Bleue, Spring/Summer 2008 (pages 213-23) [LINK TO 453] 453 Level 2: Philip Treacy on Isabella Blow 420 Introduction: Romantic Nationalism 421 Ensemble, Widows of Culloden, Autumn/Winter, 2006-7 (page 103) [LINK TO 454] 454 Level 2: Sarah Jessica Parker on her evening with McQueen 422 Ensemble, The Girl Who Lived in the Tree, Autumn/Winter, 2008-9 (pages 120-21) 423 Highland Rape Case, Autumn/Winter 1995/6 (pages 125-28) [LINK TO 455] 455 Level 2: John Gosling: Music 424 Kate Moss Hologram [LINK TO 456] 456 Annabelle Nielsen 425 It’s Only a Game, Spring/Summer 2005, ensembles (pages 136-37 and 139) [LINK TO 457] 457 Level 2: Naomi Campbell 426 Gallery 6: Romantic Exoticism 427 VOSS, Spring/Summer 2001, case featuring video of runway show (pages 143-44) [LINK TO 458] 458 Level 2: Michelle Olley reads excerpt from her diary 428 Introduction: Romantic Primitivism 429 Dress, yellow beads and black horsehair, Eshu, 2001 (page 152) [LINK TO 459] 459 Level 2: Sam Gainsbury 430 Oyster Dress, Irere, 2003 (page 166) 431 Dress, pheasant feathers, Widows of Culloden, 2006-7 (page 173) 432 Introduction: Romantic Naturalism 433 Plato’s Atlantis, 2010 (pages 185-195) [LINK TO 460] 460 Level 2: Conclusion

499 Teaser Long Version

498 Teaser Short Version

499 Teaser – Long Version

ANDREW BOLTON: The exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty presents the extraordinary creations of one of the most compelling and provocative of recent fashion designers. The audio guide accompanying the exhibition features commentary from more than a dozen of McQueen’s close friends and collaborators.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER: His construction and the attention to the detail of the construction and the real sort of mechanics of it are--he really is, and probably will continue to be, in a league of his own.

ANDREW BOLTON: Sarah Jessica Parker wore a variation of a dress from McQueen’s Widows of Culloden collection to the opening of Anglomania, an exhibition celebrating British fashion here at the Met. McQueen was her date, and he wore a kilt of matching tartan.

SJP: I said, “I would be so honored to wear your family tartan and walk up the steps of the Met with you.” So that's really where it began… And I remember him saying he wanted to, uh, uncover a lot of the neck. He wanted it to be a strapless. He wanted to show a little more. And we had a couple of fittings, I think… and that's when I started saving pins from fittings with him.

ANDREW BOLTON: Incredible.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER: Yeah. And I have them all... I'm so grateful to have that memory. I mean, you could not have put two more unlikely people in a car together really, truly. I mean, the two of us in a car silently traveling up Fifth Avenue just dead quiet, you know, my neck itching out of nerves, his face red and flushed. What I probably would have wanted to do in a car ride with him for 70 blocks is ask him questions, you know, talk about him. There are a lot of people that are very interested in themselves as subjects and conversation pieces. And he is not.

There was such a tender, quiet, kind of like this wonderful bruise about him. That obviously was such a big part of his work—that someone who was thinking and feeling all the time, was creating things that make you think and feel. And there's such a lack of that in our time. There's such a lack of critical thinking and exploring ideas and referencing periods in culture and history and fashion and a sense of literature and, you know, how a country sits politically with another country.

We like to get quick moments, information. And I think he was of a different time. I think he felt things deeply. I think he responded to things in a very colorful, demonstrative way.

ANDREW BOLTON: What was it like being fitted by him?

SARAH JESSICA PARKER: I always describe it as one of the really great, memorable experiences of a lifetime because I think by the time I met him in person, I had been exposed to a nice amount of fashion. So I had started, at that point, to understand what went into something being well made. And I couldn't believe the diligence.

He had these gorgeous hands. And he just worked. And he was quiet and unthinkably shy, didn't look in your eyes much. Didn't want to, wasn't interested in engaging, it wasn't important for me to be his friend. You know, he was very concerned about his work.

ANDREW BOLTON: Many people close to McQueen spoke to us especially for this program.

SARAH BURTON: There will never be another Lee. Every day he was inspiring, every day he came in he gave you something new to think about or new to look at.

TIINA LAAKONEN: You sort of felt very powerful and sharp and sophisticated in his clothes.

SHAUN LEANE: The beautiful thing about the whole collaboration, working with McQueen, was that it helped me push the boundaries of how jewelry should be perceived and how it should be worn, and we're left with these beautiful iconic pieces.

LOUISE WILSON: There are very few people that have a body of work that belongs to them and to nobody else. And in that sense, I can't think of another designer that even has touched on what Lee did.

ANDREW BOLTON: The exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty is on view at the Metropolitan Museum from May the 4th to July the 31st 2011.

This has been an Antenna International production.

498 Teaser - Short Version

ANDREW BOLTON: The exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty presents the extraordinary creations of one of the most compelling and provocative of recent fashion designers.

PHILIP TREACY: I like designers that have an original point of view, and his point of view was probably the most original of all.

TIINA LAAKONEN: You sort of felt very powerful and sharp and sophisticated in his clothes.

SARAH BURTON: There will never be another Lee. Every day he was inspiring, every day he came in he gave you something new to think about or new to look at.

LOUISE WILSON: There are very few people that have a body of work that belongs to them and to nobody else. And in that sense, I can't think of another designer that even has touched on what Lee did.

ANDREW BOLTON: The audio guide accompanying the exhibition features commentary from more than a dozen of McQueen’s close friends and collaborators. The exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty is on view at the Metropolitan Museum from May the 4th to July the 31st 2011.

This has been an Antenna International production.

Stop 400 Introduction ANDREW BOLTON: I’m curator Andrew Bolton and it is my pleasure to welcome you to Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. The exhibition celebrates McQueen's extraordinary career, featuring work from his MA graduation in 1992 to his final runway presentation, which took place after his death in February 2010.

Before we begin, please find a place to stand where others can pass by.

Throughout his career, McQueen deeply engaged with various philosophical abstractions of Romanticism, especially the concept of the Sublime—a heightened emotional state that contrasts awe and wonder, fear and terror. He wanted visceral reactions-- both to his fashions and his singular runway shows.

The exhibition is organized thematically around concepts central to McQueen’s fashions, concepts that were also central to the 19th century Romantic Movement—the cult of the artist, the gothic, nationalism, exoticism, primitivism, and the power and beauty of nature. What emerges is a unique vision of fashion, which brings Romanticism into the present while touching on the major issues of our times—race, class, gender and identity.

On this tour, I will be joined by many of McQueen’s close collaborators and friends, giving you a unique opportunity to hear from those who knew him, and his fashions, best.

Now we’ll start moving through the exhibition. As you go, please be especially conscious of other visitors. You’ll see overviews throughout and we suggest that you start with those and then if an area isn’t too crowded, go to the works with audio numbers. As you enter the first gallery now, press play to hear a brief biography of McQueen.

Stop 450 McQueen Biography

ANDREW BOLTON: Start looking at this first gallery as you listen. Lee Alexander McQueen was born in 1969 and raised in London’s East End. His father was a cabdriver and his mother stayed at home, raising their six children. At age 16, he left school before graduating.

McQueen then went on to apprentice at Anderson & Sheppard, tailors to the British royal family. In 1992, he graduated from the world’s most prestigious fashion program: the MA at London’s Central Saint Martin’s College. He presented his first collection the following year, titled ‘Taxi Driver’.

McQueen showed under his own label for eight seasons. In 1996, the Paris couture house Givenchy recognized his extraordinary talent and hired him as chief designer. After five years at Givenchy, McQueen devoted his time to designing under his own label, with financial backing from the Gucci group.

Throughout his life, Alexander McQueen—or Lee, as he was known to his friends—remained plainspoken and anti-establishment. All the while, he designed fantastically imaginative, exquisitely crafted clothing.

Stop 401 Dress, VOSS, 2001

ANDREW BOLTON: This particular dress came from a collection called VOSS, which was all about beauty. And I think one of McQueen's greatest legacies was how he would challenge normative conventions of beauty and challenge your expectations of beauty, what we mean by beauty. This particular one is made out of ostrich feathers dyed red. And the glass slides are actually microscope slides that have been painted red to give the idea of blood underneath. And there's a wonderful quote in association with this dress, where he talks about how there's blood beneath every layer of skin. And it's an incredible, again, very powerful, powerful piece.

Stop 402 Introduction: The Romantic Mind

ANDREW BOLTON: The first gallery in the exhibition is the Romantic Mind. And it's really focusing on how McQueen would harness his imagination, his sort of singular imagination, into the actual construction of his garments. The gallery is organized taxonomically, as a series of jacket studies, coat studies, pant studies, skirt studies, very much to get an impression of the vocabulary and McQueen's design lexicon.

Stop 403 Coat, Jack the Ripper, 1992 (page 32-33)

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen made this frock coat for his 1992 graduation collection, which he called, “Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims.” The collection’s title reveals his fascination with the Victorian culture. It also established his distinctly narrative, autobiographical approach to design. One of McQueen’s relatives owned an inn that housed a victim of Jack the Ripper. Here we have Louise Wilson, who was McQueen’s teacher at Central Saint Martin’s:

LOUISE WILSON: Well, he always had a story to tell. For instance, they had to do something called a marketing report, which was basically setting their collection in context. And even then, Lee's report was on genealogy. Jack the Ripper, and quite in-depth. So it was telling the story of his collection even at that stage. You know, it was really, really personal to him. It was linked to his mother, it was linked to her interest in genealogy. Unfortunately, the market report was stolen out of my office, possibly by Lee.

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen was a brilliant storyteller, and he began each collection by developing a story that would guide the design of the clothes.

Stop 404 Jacket, Nihilism, 1994 (page 38)

ANDREW BOLTON: This jacket belongs to Tiina Laakonen, an editor at British Vogue who became friends with McQueen in the 1990s, at the start of his career.

TIINA LAAKONEN: What it has that is unusual is the cut in the front. It doesn't come straight down. It sort of curves to the back. It's backless also. This jacket doesn't have a back. So you end up with these two panels on the sides.

And then there is the shoulder. And the interesting part of the shoulder is that it doesn't have any padding in it. Most people who would even attempt a shoulder like that would pad it to the max and say, "Oh, it needs to be constructed like a bridge. It needs some engineering in there." This jacket has no engineering. It's all about the cut.

They had this sexiness and this sophistication. And you sort of felt very powerful and sharp and sophisticated in his clothes.

ANDREW BOLTON: Press play to hear Tiina describe her first impressions of Alexander McQueen.

Stop 451 Level 2: McQueen’s Early Years

TIINA LAAKONEN: When he first came around into the fashion scene, he sort of looked not fashionable. He looked like this slightly chubby, cute, but kind of rough kid from East End. He certainly did not look like a couturier.

I do remember Alexander walking in with a little plastic shopping bag on him. And Alexander is pulling out clothes out of his plastic bag and putting them on us. And literally, he had a pair of scissors with him. And I remember so clearly him putting a dress on me. And the dress didn't work quite well. So he just took the pair of scissors, "Okay. This is going to be a top now." And he just took the scissors into the dress and chopped it off on me. And there would always be clothes coming out of plastic bags. And it was a very charming, very pure, very innocent way of what I would say doing couture clothes.

Stop 405 Bumster Trouser, Highland Rape, 1995-6 (page 55)

ANDREW BOLTON: One of his most iconic designs in this particular gallery is the bumster. And there’s a little bit of a mythology around the bumster that he was inspired by the builder's bum. In McQueen's mind, it was an experiment in elongating the body. For McQueen, the most exciting part of anybody's body, male or female, was the bottom of the spine. And the bumsters was really about showcasing that part of the body.

MIRA HYDE: My name is Mira Hyde, and I was living in the East End, in an area called Hoxton Square and Lee had moved into my building. He found out that I was a male groomer -- I did hair and makeup for men -- and invited me to do his next show. And that was how I first met Lee.

I was given a lot of the bumsters because I was quite small and I could wear them. It made you feel taller, especially when you wore them with heels, because then all of the sudden, you just look, you know, incredibly long-legged and very long torso.

The bumcrack -- sometimes you could see a bit of it, and sometimes it was just above it, but normally you would see just a touch. It was like a bum cleavage, and depending where I went, I would expose it, or I would wear a long shirt, depending on where I was. But, I always got commented on it, everywhere.

ANDREW BOLTON: The bumster trouser caused a sensation when it was launched in the early '90s. And I think what's interesting about McQueen is how he would harness the attitude in the street. He was very much about anarchy and about the anarchy of the British street, the anarchy of British music, and trying to, again, harness that into his clothes. And the bumster was one of the garments that, very early on, would make his reputation as this provocateur.

Stop 406 Dress, Plato’s Atlantis, Spring/Summer 2010 (page 43)

ANDREW BOLTON: As you can see here, McQueen designed many permutations of the frock coat. He made this one for the 2010 collection, “Plato’s Atlantis.” Here we have Sarah Burton, who was McQueen’s head designer for fourteen years, talk about the collection:

SARAH BURTON: He was interested in this concept of hybrid. With those tailored pieces, specifically, they had tailored arms, but the body was jersey. So there's this weird sort of hybrid and juxtapositioning of different fabrics and how would they react together.

So he took these jersey shifts, put them on the mannequin, and then cut into all of these tailored pieces and morphed the two together. When you watched him cut on the stand, it gave you goose bumps because he had a sort of, a bravery. He was never afraid of anything. It was never, "Oh, this is not going to work." He was so confident and so clear about the way that he was doing things, and that was, I think, part of his genius is his knowledge of every single level of making clothes.

I remember on the last collection he did, he actually -- on a piece of felt with a piece of chalk -- chalked out a frock coat by eye, cut it out, and pinned it on a dummy and it was a perfect fit. That's how familiar he was with that piece of clothing.

Stop 407 Introduction: Romantic Gothic

ANDREW BOLTON: Now we're entering the gallery Romantic Gothic. McQueen's work often oscillated between life and death, good and evil, light and dark. The tension that you see in McQueen's work is often this play between those two opposites, whether it has to do with angels and demons or predator prey or nature and technology. And in the Romantic Gothic, it's really about life and death. So in this particular gallery, you see a lot of pieces which are inspired by the cult of death and the cult of mourning.

Stop 408 Dress, Horn of Plenty, 2009-10 (page 72)

ANDREW BOLTON: One of the most compelling items in this particular gallery is an ensemble that's made out of duck feathers dyed black, which gives the impression of a raven. A raven was a romantic symbol of death. And again, it's an item that's very melancholy, but also very romantic at the same time. It came from a collection called “The Horn of Plenty.” And “The Horn of Plenty” was a collection that was very much inspired by the 1950's haute couture. And you even see the silhouette here as well. You see the very nipped in waist, the huge shoulders. McQueen loved a very hard shoulder and a very small waist. So even in this particular garment, even though it seems so extreme, he's still referencing 1950s couture. He's still playing with the proportions that he loved so much.

And feathers play such an important role in McQueen's work. He loved birds. And feathers was a material that he would revisit again and again in his work.

Stop 409 Corset, Dante, 1996-7 (page 82)

ANDREW BOLTON: In the Victorian era, each stage of mourning demanded a different color, one of which was lilac. This corset’s jet beading is also associated with mourning. And here, we see McQueen finding poetry and beauty in death.

The corset comes from his autumn/winter 1996 collection, called “Dante.” By this time, McQueen had gained an international reputation, but he was also still struggling to make a living. Louise Wilson, Director of the MA program at Central Saint Martin’s, talks about those early years for McQueen, or Lee, as he was known to his friends:

LOUISE WILSON: There's one thing you could say about Lee: he deserves every credit for what he did because it was incredibly hard when he left and they had absolutely no money and it was a very different time to now. And they lived in a squat. And although that all sounds very romantic, it was hell. And because of not having any money they took risks. And it sat outside of a fashion system.

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen’s skill at making clothes helped him to succeed.

LOUISE WILSON: An architect doesn't build the house for you; they employ the builders, whereas, Lee, in effect, built the house because he cut the patterns and he sewed the jackets. Basically, he didn't need to depend on anybody. He didn't have to employ a machinist, he didn't have to employ a pattern-cutter at the very beginning. You know, if he had nothing, he could still create.

Stop 410 Angels and Demons Collection 2010-11 (pages 93-101)

ANDREW BOLTON: When Alexander McQueen died in February of 2010, he left this collection, called “Angels and Demons,” unfinished in his studio. Sarah Burton, McQueen’s chief designer for many years, helped to complete it.

SARAH BURTON: It was very much inspired by handcraft and the idea that in a way in our culture there's the loss of the artisan, the loss of people doing things with their hands and making beautiful artisanal clothing or carvings or paintings or sculpture.

And he looked at all the old masters and he looked at sort of medieval arts and religious iconography. It was almost looking at the Dark Ages and finding that there was a light in the Dark Ages.

There was still a modernity in the way that the fabrics were developed. So, for instance, there's a dress with a Hieronymus Bosch jacquard on Heaven and Hell. And what we did is we scanned the painting and digitally wove the jacquard. So in a way you've still got this juxtaposition of the old and the new, which I think is always important in his work.

ANDREW BOLTON: The gold feather jacket was made by hand painting duck feathers and gluing them to fine silk organza. Although it appears rich and luxurious, it feels as light as air. Inspired by religious painting, McQueen designed the collar to circle the face like a golden halo.

Stop 411 Introduction: Cabinet of Curiosities

ANDREW BOLTON: As an addendum to Romantic Gothic is the gallery Cabinet of Curiosities. And throughout the whole gallery, which is filled with cubbyholes custom-made for each particular object, you see the wealth of McQueen's imagination in terms of his accessories. For McQueen, accessories weren't independent; they were something that were very much integral to the overall look of the outfit. And often the poetry of McQueen's collections were held in the accessories. He would actually use the accessories as a way of distilling concepts within his work.

He was very loyal to the people he worked with. And the two main designers, in terms of the accessories, were Philip Treacy for the hats, and Shaun Leane for the jewelry. And they were constant collaborators, almost from the beginning of his career.

Stop 412 Dress, No. 13, 1999, White Cotton spray-painted dress (page 217)

ANDREW BOLTON: In one of the most memorable moments of McQueen’s runway shows, two robots spray-painted a dress worn by the model Shalom Harlow. Here we talk to Shalom about the experience.

SHALOM HARLOW: I walked right up to it and stood on top of this circular platform. And as soon as I gained my footing, the circular platform started a slow, steady rotation. And it was almost like the mechanical robots were stretching and moving their parts after an extended period of slumber. And as they sort of gained consciousness, they recognized that there was another presence amongst them, and that was myself.

And at some point, the curiosity switched and it became slightly more aggressive and frenetic and engaged on their part. And an agenda became solidified somehow. And my relationship with them shifted at that moment because I started to lose control over my own experience, and they were taking over. So they began to spray and paint and create this futuristic design on this very simple dress.

And when they were finished, they sort of receded and I walked, almost staggered, up to the audience and splayed myself in front of them with complete abandon and surrender.

It almost became this like aggressive sexual experience in some way. And I think that this moment really encapsulates, in a way, how Alexander related to, at least at this particular moment, related to creation. Is that all of creation? Is that the act of a human being being created, the sexual act? Is it the act of, you know, the Big Bang, if you will, that violence and that chaos and that surrender that takes place?

Alexander and I didn’t have any conversation directly related to this particular piece and to creating this moment within his show. I like to think that he wanted to interfere as little as possible and allow me to have the most genuine, spontaneous experience as possible.

Stop 413 Shaun Leane, Coiled Corset, The Overlook, 1999-2000 (page 200)

ANDREW BOLTON: This corset was inspired by the coiled necklaces of the Ndebele people of Southern Africa. McQueen gave jeweler Shaun Leane the daunting task of transforming the necklace into a corset.

SHAUN LEANE: The coiled corset was a particularly amazing piece because I had to cast the model's torso in concrete to get an exact form of her, and then I had to literally form every coil, one-by-one, front and back, and work all the way up, so that it was a perfect fit. And she's actually placed into the corset, and then it's screwed all along the side, and up the arms, and beside the neck. There are tiny, little bolts, so the model's actually screwed into the piece.

It's not heavy. It's made from aluminium, and even though it looks quite restrictive, the model actually said the piece was actually very, very comfortable.

It's a beautiful piece in my mind because it looks quite like armor, but then it's very flattering to the female form, and it's a really beautiful silhouette of the female form.

The beautiful thing about the whole collaboration, working with McQueen, was that it helped me push the boundaries of how jewelry should be perceived and how it should be worn, and we're left with these beautiful iconic pieces.

Stop 414 Shaun Leane, Face Disc, Irere, 2003 (pages 208-209)

ANDREW BOLTON: This silver disk is an extraordinary piece of jewelry for the face. Shaun Leane created it for McQueen’s 2003 collection, called “Irere,” which told the story of a shipwreck at sea and a subsequent landfall in the Amazon. Held in the teeth, it was meant to evoke a tribal weapon.

SHAUN LEANE: It was made from resin, and then it was electroformed with silver plate. Now, this method I discovered of electroforming, Alexander really appreciated, because it allowed us to create things that looked quite solid and bold, but were actually quite light in weight.

It is quite an aggressive-looking object, but it's that element of creating a really different silhouette, and a form, and a shape with the jewelry, and I think this is what Alexander really wanted to achieve with this, because from the side profile, it created a very unusual avant-garde silhouette.

Stop 415 Ensemble and Prosthetic Leg, No. 13, 1999 (pages 220-223)

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen made this ensemble, with carved prosthetic legs, for Aimee Mullins. Mullins is a world-class Paralympic athlete, and she modeled the boots for his 1999 show “Number 13.”

AIMEE MULLINS: They were solid wood, solid ash, so there's no give in the ankle. So any kind of a runway walk that I had practiced went out the window. And then suddenly they laced me into this leather bodice, and there were some spinning discs in the floor of the runway, which I had, while practicing in these wooden legs, you know, was very conscious of how to avoid them. But now that my neck was secured in this almost like a neck-brace position, I couldn't look down. I couldn't even see where the spinning discs were. And I just remember thinking, "Okay, you've done the Olympics. You've done harder things than this. You can do this. You can survive it."

And you know, the fact is, nobody knew that they were prosthetic legs. You know, they were the star of the show, these wooden boots peeking out from under this raffia dress, but in fact, they were actually legs made for me.

His clothes have always been very sensuous, and I mean the full gamut of that. So hard and strict and unrelenting -- as life can be sometimes. And then this incredibly romantic, you know, swishing of the raffia.

ANDREW BOLTON: Mullins’s collaboration with McQueen launched her modeling career, and she is now one of the faces of L’Oreal cosmetics. To hear more, press play.

Stop 452 Level 2: Aimee Mullins continued

AIMEE MULLINS: Neither of us was interested in shocking anybody. It was about, look, we're not going to hide anything. This is who you are, this is who I am, this is what my body is like. By starting from there and acknowledging what we are, then we're empowered to create and we can become “other”. And I found that hugely inspiring in my own life.

I feel like when I think about Lee, I mean, obviously I miss my friend, but I think about the fact that he, in actually what was a very brief career, made a huge impact on how we think about beauty.

Stop 416 Shaun Leane, Spine Corset, 1998 (page 202)

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen found ideas everywhere: in the streets, in nature, in art and in history. He was even inspired by a green sweater worn by the character Joey on the TV sitcom “Friends”. You can also see the influence of film, in this somewhat sinister corset.

SHAUN LEANE: He was always fascinated by the spine. So, he asked me to create a corset, which was the spine with the rib cage, so that the girl could actually wear this as a corset on the outside of her body, so we would see the beauty of these bone structures on the outside, attached to the dress.

And as we were doing it, Alexander came to me and said, "Will you put a tail on this?" And where he got that idea, was out of the film, "The Omen." When the mother of the omen was discovered -- her skeleton -- she was half-raven and half- dog, and he was quite inspired by this.

Stop 417 Philip Treacy, Headdress (bird), Headdress, The Girl Who Lived in the Tree, autumn/winter 2008-9

Wood (pages 205-06)

PHILIP TREACY: My name is Philip Treacy and I'm a hat designer.

Alexander called one day and he said, "Can you make me a bird made from pieces of wood?" Designers, you know, they expect you to be able to do anything that comes into their heads. And Alexander did that in spades. It sounds potentially possible until you go to the woods and look for pieces of wood that can vaguely resemble a bird. So I went to various woods around where I live and various parks. I had a rather unusual experience one day where somebody thought I was cruising. Of course, Alexander absolutely loved that part. You can't really say to somebody as they sort of check you out in the woods, you know, "I'm actually looking for some wood to make a bird," because it sounds a little dodgy.

However, I did remember some pieces of wood that I'd found one time when I was in the Bahamas. Washed up on the sand were these little pieces of wood that had been bleached by the sun. And so that's what the bird turned out to be made from. And then I used some coral for the fantail on the back.

And so I would arrive at his show in Paris usually about an hour before the show. And then he would behave like a child on Christmas morning. And so he'd follow me around and he'd say, "Okay, let's see it." And then I'd open the box and he was absolutely thrilled with this bird.

Stop 418 Armadillo Boot, Plato’s Atlantis, Spring/Summer 2010 (pages 212-13)

SARAH BURTON: I’m Sarah Burton, and I’m Creative Director at Alexander McQueen.

The Armadillo itself was the idea of the leg morphing into the foot to create the illusion of a ballerina standing on her pointe. So, you know, he wanted these very elongated legs with a morphed foot. He called them the “Armadillo," and they had this sort of armor-like appearance. So it's the idea of the fragility of them standing on their pointes, but they had this beautiful sculptural curve to them.

What's strange is they're like a shoe within a shoe. So actually the bridge of your foot is not so extreme. They just look, they look uncomfortable. They're actually quite easy to walk in. Well, not quite easy, but they're not, they’re not terrible to walk in.

Stop 419 Philip Treacy, Hat of turkey feathers painted and shaped to look like butterflies, La Dame Bleue, Spring/Summer 2008 (pages 213-23)

PHILIP TREACY: My name is Philip Treacy. Here is a hat I designed for Alexander that resembles a flock of butterflies. They're butterfly prints on feathers.

He had his own perspective on scale and proportion as well. So I always remember one day I was like, you know, "How big would you like the flock to be?" And so, he was like, "Big," sort of spreading his arms out. It's quite a strong statement, but you know, Alexander was all about the show. This hat was worn by a model, I think she was about 6' 5”, so by the time she was on the runway in kind of impossible high platform shoes, and the hat, she looked like she was about 7' tall. So he had this capacity to make people look otherworldly.

This piece was made for the show that he commemorated our friend Isabella with.

ANDREW BOLTON: To hear more about Isabella – Isabella Blow – press play.

Stop 419 Level 2: Philip Treacy on Isabella Blow

ANDREW BOLTON: Isabella Blow was a fashion editor and stylist who bought McQueen’s entire MA graduation collection and became a passionate champion of his work.

PHILIP TREACY: Our common denominator was Isabella. And so we were like her children, he and I, and she was our Mum or our kind of lover. She was a huge part of his aesthetic. Isabella would phone, you know, five times a day about something she'd read in a book or something about Catherine the Great or did I realize that Catherine the Great had worn this into battle. And she would do the same thing to him. In the back of your mind you're thinking, "Is this person crazy or something?" But because it was quite sweet of her to sort of constantly try and, you know, indulge you in her aesthetic, you ended up designing exactly what she'd phoned about.

When she would go and visit Alexander for a fitting she'd look into the mirror and she'd go, "Baby, that's fantastic!" Okay? She wouldn't say, "Oh, that's looking nice," or, "I like that." When they loved it, they loved it a lot. It was heightened creative moments that made them tick, as it did him, too.

Stop 420 Introduction: Romantic Nationalism

ANDREW BOLTON: This gallery explores the theme Romantic Nationalism. McQueen was once asked what his Scottish roots meant to him, and he said, "Everything." So it was something that he was deeply engaged with. McQueen was very proud of London: the anarchy of the street and the energy of the street. Nationalism was a theme that was very prevalent in the Romantic Movement, and something that McQueen channeled in his work.

Stop 421 Ensemble, Widows of Culloden, Autumn/Winter 2006-7 (page 103)

ANDREW BOLTON: Sarah Jessica Parker wore a variation of a dress from McQueen’s “Widows of Culloden” collection to the opening of Anglomania, an exhibition celebrating British fashion here at the Met. McQueen was her date, and he wore a kilt of matching tartan.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER: I said, “I would be so honored to wear your family tartan and walk up the steps of the Met with you.” So that's really where it began.

ANDREW BOLTON: What was it like being fitted by him?

SARAH JESSICA PARKER: Well, I, I always describe it as one of the really great, memorable experiences of a lifetime because I think by the time I met him in person, I had been exposed to a nice amount of fashion. So I had started, at that point, to understand what went into something being well made. And I couldn't believe the diligence.

He had these gorgeous hands. And he just worked. And he was quiet and unthinkably shy, didn't look in your eyes much, didn't want to, wasn't interested in engaging, it wasn't important for me to be his friend. You know, he was very concerned about his work.

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen was extremely private, and rarely attended public events. To hear Sarah Jessica Parker discuss their evening at the Met, press play.

Stop 454 Level 2: Sarah Jessica Parker on her evening with McQueen

SARAH JESSICA PARKER: You could not have put two more unlikely people in a car together, really, truly. I mean, the two of us in a car silently traveling up Fifth Avenue, just dead quiet, you know, my neck itching out of nerves, his face red and flushed. What I probably would have wanted to do in a car ride with him for 70 blocks is ask him questions, you know, talk about him. There are a lot of people that are very interested in themselves as subjects and conversation pieces. And he is not.

There was such a tender, quiet, kind of like this wonderful bruise about him. That you, obviously, was such a big part of his work—that someone who was thinking and feeling all the time, was creating things that make you think and feel. And there's such a lack of that in our time. There's such a lack of that in our time, such a lack of critical thinking and exploring ideas and referencing periods in culture and history and fashion and a sense of literature and, you know, how a country sits politically with another country, brother to brother.

And, we like to get quick moments, information. And I think he was of a different time. I think he felt things deeply. I think he responded to things in a very colorful, demonstrative way. I think that’s the great loss.

ANDREW BOLTON: Yeah.

Stop 422 Ensemble, The Girl Who Lived in the Tree, Autumn/Winter, 2008-9 (pages 120- 121)

ANDREW BOLTON: This crimson coat and delicate empire-waist dress culminated a collection from 2008, inspired by the queens of England. As Sarah Burton explains:

SARAH BURTON: It's an enormous volume of fabric that at the neck is all bulleted and at the hem is all bulleted. But although it's duchess satin it still appears very light; and I think he wanted this sort of, you know, this regality but a lightness to it.

ANDREW BOLTON: The collection, called “The Girl Who Lived in the Tree,” was dreamy and romantically nationalistic, albeit tinged with irony. Sam Gainsbury produced the runway show for the collection, which featured an enormous tree wrapped in transparent grey silk:

SAM GAINSBURY: Mostly Lee would have a very clear idea of who the girl was, and then from that point he would decide where she was, and then he'd decide what she was wearing. He had an amazing tree in his garden in Fairleigh, in his country house, and this tree had always fascinated him. So for me it was about the beauty and the power of this tree.

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen conceived a fairytale about a girl who dressed in beautiful black rags, presented during the first half of the show. When she met her prince, she descended from her tree, and her wardrobe exploded with the color, opulent materials, and jewels you see here.

Stop 423 Highland Rape

ANDREW BOLTON: The collection “Highland Rape,” which was in autumn/winter 1995 to 1996, is widely considered to be the collection that established McQueen's reputation internationally. At the time, people thought the rape referenced the rape of women. But it's actually the rape of Scotland by England. The collection actually referenced the Jacobite risings of the 18th Century and the Highland Clearances of the 19th Century.

McQueen saw the Scottish heritage as rather bleak and rather brutal. In this particular collection, you can see that actually manifested in the clothes themselves by the slashing of the garments. And there's one particular dress, which is made out of green leather with a slash in the middle of the dress, just at the breasts. And we actually used that conceit as part of the construction of this gallery, where you'll see a large gash created out of the wooden planks, which is a reference to McQueen's punkish attitude and also the deconstructionism that you see in the dresses in this particular gallery.

As Trino Verkade explains:

TRINO VERKADE: People then started to see him as an artist, because this was somebody who was talking through his shows and through his clothes on a very personal level about something that was really powerful and quite shocking to people. This was in 1995. This is a time when people were doing minimalism. And Lee just came along and just socked them right in the face with the, with this show.

This collection was the first time that he did the torn lace, which was to become a signature of his. And we'd buy the lace in Brick Lane, and we'd cut round each flower to give that very delicate, torn appearance, which, it became something of a look for him.

ANDREW BOLTON: The tartan of the McQueen Clan, which you see here, became another signature feature of McQueen’s work.

You may have noticed that there’s music playing throughout the installation. It was chosen by John Gosling, a London DJ who engineered the music for most of McQueen’s runway shows. To hear John discuss McQueen’s musical tastes as you move through this gallery, press play.

Stop 455 LEVEL 2: John Gosling, Music

JOHN GOSLING: Most people, if you're doing a show, will just ask you to play some music as people walk in. But Lee’s would be, "I would like the sound of a man who can't breathe in a sandstorm, and every three minutes and seven seconds there has to be a camel." You know, it was that kind of specific, and then you'd have to listen to that for an hour and a half, which would drive people crazy. But I think it was quite clever because when the show actually finally kicked in, you were that much more ready for it, and it had that much more of an impact.

He really set things up, and he really understood that, that kind of theater.

Lee would always, you know, end it on an uplifting note, after you'd been sort of been put through some kind of really scary stuff beforehand. You know, we'd quite often have Earth, Wind & Fire or Michael Jackson, “Ben” we had once, and there was a lot of Donna Summer. It was his sense of humor as well, I think. It's like, "You know, I know that was a bit dark, but, you know, here we go. This is what I really like.”

Stop 424 Kate Moss Hologram

ANDREW BOLTON: This hologram provided the breathtaking conclusion to McQueen’s 1996 show, “Widows of Culloden.” After the models had walked the runway, a white light appeared inside a glass pyramid. It morphed into the model Kate Moss. A tabloid scandal had recently damaged her career, so her image took the audience by surprise. Sam Gainsbury tells us about putting the show together:

SAM GAINSBURY: He knew what the dress was going to look like and he knew what he wanted her to do and to be this other worldly creature at the end of the show that was just mesmerizing.

And then with Kate, we filmed her. We hung her up. We flew her on wires up in the air, and we just spun her around. And she gave a beautiful, beautiful performance. The chiffon comes off her face, and people realize that it's Kate, and there was just a spontaneous applause at that point.

Word had got out that there was a really incredible finale for that season's McQueen show. But I don't think they expected what they saw, and you know, I think it was always just a “Bravo, Lee. Thank you very much again for giving us this incredible experience that we'll never forget.”

ANDREW BOLTON: Kate Moss was a close friend of McQueen’s—as was Annabelle Neilson. To hear Annabelle talk about their times together, press play.

Stop 456 Level 2: Annabelle Neilson

ANNABELLE NEILSON: My name is Annabelle Neilson. I was fortunate enough to meet Alexander, or as I called him, Lee, McQueen, 18 years ago.

He was very cheeky. I mean, we would go out at night in the East End, mainly in SoHo, where one of our favorite places which was The Shadow Lounge, which is a gay club, which we used to go and dance in. And, you know, if we were ever bored, we'd always just sort of just go, okay, let's go to the Groucho and have a fish and chips, or whatever, or a hamburger.

He had a very close relationship with his mother, obviously, and with his sisters who were, I think, great inspirations to him as a young, a young man. And his mother, particularly, because she was at every single one of his shows. I mean, in the early days, you know, sort of sitting there making sandwiches, cups of tea for all of us. You know, she was a wonderful influence for him. And I think that, you know, obviously, her passing was a terrible loss for him that he couldn't deal with.

You know, Lee loved what he did. And you know, Lee, or Alexander McQueen, whichever one you want to say, you know, he gave this world an amazing show. He really did. And I will be forever grateful that he was my best friend.

Stop 425 It’s Only a Game, Spring/Summer 2005, ensembles (pages 136-7 and 139)

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen designed the 2005 collection “It's Only a Game” around the idea of a chess match between America and Japan. Each ensemble corresponded to a particular chess piece.

The queen wears a short, thigh-high dress, which is wide at the hips, a silhouette based on the 18th Century. A kimono collar, obi sash, and an undershirt beautifully embroidered to look like tattooing are all drawn from Japanese culture.** Next to her, the king appears as an American football player, with shoulder pads and a helmet covered in Japanese tattooing.

In the runway show, the models moved as if they were pieces in a life-sized chess game, an idea inspired by a scene from “Harry Potter.” Taken as a whole, the collection revealed McQueen’s remarkable ability to look across cultures for inspiration.

Model Naomi Campbell was a close friend of McQueen’s and describes what it’s like to wear a McQueen ensemble:

NAOMI CAMPBELL: Everything was extreme. It wasn't like you want to look beautiful. But you became this completely other creature. And you felt like you went into that vibe, and you went with it. It was regal but it was also with a story to tell, and it was futuristic. It was all in one. It was not predictable in any way or form.

ANDREW BOLTON: To hear more from Naomi, press play.

Stop 457 Level 2: Naomi Campbell

NAOMI CAMPBELL: He knew exactly what he wanted and he knew exactly what he saw didn’t look right on you and what he wanted on you. So fittings were very -- they weren't long and exhausting at all. They were quick. I love when someone just knows and tells you from A to Zed exactly what they want. I love that.

I know his looks when I was watching -- as a spectator -- watching the show, they were drastic with women. A lot of people thought, "Oh, he doesn't like women." But it's not true. Lee loved women. It's just a show. It's a performance. Those were the most terrifying shows to do as a model but then, after, the most fun because you pushed yourself to do something out of your comfort zone, you know?

Stop 426 Introduction: Romantic Exoticism

ANDREW BOLTON: We've called this gallery Romantic Exoticism. The lure of the exotic was another aspect of the Romantic Movement that McQueen channeled through his collections. He was particularly attracted to Chinese and Japanese culture. He would actually look at particular garments from these cultures and endlessly reconfigure them in his collections -- particularly the kimono. The kimono was a garment that McQueen used very early on and adapted throughout his career -- the kimono collar, the obi sash. And you see many examples of the kimono in this particular gallery. In the 19th Century, romantic exoticized settings ranged from Spain to Asia to Africa. And these are all areas that have sparked McQueen's imagination.

Stop 427 VOSS, Spring/Summer 2001, case featuring video of runway show (pages 143- 44)

ANDREW BOLTON: In this gallery, we’re looking at the 2001 collection of VOSS. Sam Gainsbury produced McQueen’s runway shows, which often rose to the level of performance art.

SAM GAINSBURY: It was about the beauty within. That was the message that he was trying to get across. But it was also what your interpretation of beauty was. And it was just so simple because when the guests arrived they walked into the big empty space and there was just a big mirrored box. So it was just a big, huge mirrored box. And that was it, you would sit and look at your own reflection for 45 minutes with some strange music playing, which made quite a lot of the people feel uncomfortable. The longer they were sat there waiting, the more uncomfortable they felt just staring at themselves.

ANDREW BOLTON: At the end of the show, the walls of an interior glass box came crashing down to reveal the nude woman you see in this video--Michelle Olley, a journalist.

MICHELLE OLLEY: It wasn’t about me as a person; it was about me as an idea. And I was very attracted to that. There's a certain amount of mischief in going out there as a big girl in the middle of a fashion show and just putting it out there. Because, you know, I think there is an extent to which there's a little bit of a joke in there, in that people are looking in on fear and death and fear. And fear is also kind of a fat girl in fashion.

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen's collections often tapped into cultural anxieties. He always said that he wanted people to leave his collections feeling something, good or bad.

In preparation for the show, Michelle had to sit perfectly still in the air- conditioned box for three hours surrounded by moths, some of which were glued to her body. To hear Michelle read excerpts from her diary of the experience, press play.

Stop 458 Level 2: Michelle Olley reads excerpts from her diary

MICHELLE OLLEY: I can't move hardly because of the moths, so my lower leg is hurting after about 20 minutes on the chair. I've got at least an hour and a half alone in here, and that's if the show starts on time, which, of course, they never do.

The cold air is giving me goose bumps and making the glue moth parts really itch horrible on my skin. Time to test whether they really are listening at all times. I asked Anna to turn off the air-con and they agree to give it a rest for 10 minutes. By this stage, I had no idea how long I'd been in there, or how long I had left.

Anna called to say it would be another 15 minutes, because apparently, they were waiting for Gwyneth Paltrow, who was stuck in a traffic queue. Typical.

After over an hour of the heartbeat and blue velvet-Uncle Frank-heavy breathing entry music, it was a relief to hear the "How Sweet" soundtrack kicking in.

It's nearly time. “Okay, Michelle, the walls are coming down now.” I can hear the prop guys counting it down. It falls. I'm bathed in light. Strangely quiet. No flinching. The glass falls fat and heavy. None bounces back from the white tiles. The moths are free.

All I can see from my piggy eyeholes is the empty moth net on the ground. I can hear the applause, though. Lights go down. After a minute or two, I look up and realize that I'm alone. No one has come to get me. So I grab my robe and trainers from under the couch, and crunch my way to freedom.

Stop 428 Introduction: Romantic Primitivism

ANDREW BOLTON: And now we enter a gallery entitled Romantic Primitivism. The theme of Romantic Primitivism draws on the romantic ideal of the noble savage living in harmony with the natural world. And this was a conceit that McQueen frequently engaged with in his collections and often represented it paradoxically in combinations such as contrasting modern and primitive, civilized and uncivilized. Typically McQueen's narratives in his collections glorified the state of nature and often tipped the moral balance in favor of the natural man, unfettered by the artificial constructs of civilization.

Stop 429 Dress (yellow beads and black horse hair) Eshu, 2001 (page 152)

ANDREW BOLTON: The 2001 collection “Eshu” was inspired by the Yoruba people of West Africa, mixing tribal details with luxurious fabrics. This dress, embroidered with yellow glass beads interwoven with horsehair, is a tour de force of the couture. McQueen contrasts the sophistication of the beading with the rawness of the hair.

Sarah Jessica Parker:

SARAH JESSICA PARKER: I described his clothes once—and I hope this isn't offensive—but they were like sometimes ugly/beautiful. You couldn't just call them beautiful because it seems… that’s like saying, "It's fine. You know, the dinner was fine. You know, the clothing was lovely. They were lovely."

But I think it's this sort of raw sex of his clothes with the very unusual androgyny, an attempt at that at the same time. He kind of married these opposites, these sort of contrasting ideas, you know. A very high neck, which is very, very hard to wear. It's not particularly sexy. But because the fabric was so close to the body, everything hugged in a really amazing way. You would tend to consider a high neck where you mightn't with anybody else's, because it still felt really sexy.

ANDREW BOLTON: The runway show for Eshu emphasized the raw power of the clothes. To hear Sam Gainsbury explain, press play.

Stop 459 Level 2: Sam Gainsbury

SAM GAINSBURY: Sometimes it wasn't as complicated as a big special effects and a finale. And I think what Lee felt was that he had found this big empty location that was very raw; the collection was very raw.

We built a pathway down from the top of the building to the bottom of the building that the models had to walk down. And we mic-ed up their feet so you could hear them walking and coming.

And I think that Lee felt that it was enough.

Stop 430 Oyster Dress, Irere, 2003 (page 166)

ANDREW BOLTON: One of the highlights in this gallery is a dress called the Oyster Dress, which is made up of hundreds and hundreds of layers of silk organza, almost like a mille-feuille pastry. And the collection told the story of a shipwreck at sea and the subsequent landfall in the Amazon, and it was peopled with pirates, conquistadors, and Amazonian Indians.

And I think that what's interesting about this particular dress is how you see how McQueen evolved as a designer in terms of the fact that he was always well known as a tailor. On this particular dress, you see a much softer approach.

As Sarah Burton explains:

SARAH BURTON: He wanted this idea of it was almost like she drowned and the top part of the dress is all fine boning and tulle and the chiffon is all frayed and disheveled on the top. The skirt is made out of hundreds and hundreds of circles of organza. Then with a pen what Lee did was he drew organic lines. And then all these circles were cut, joined together, and then applied in these lines along the skirt. So you created this organic oyster-like effect.

ANDREW BOLTON: He learnt softness at Givenchy, he learnt draping at Givenchy. And this particular dress, I think, is a real tour-de-force of the couture and is a great reference to the skills that McQueen learnt at the ateliers at Givenchy.

Stop 431 Dress (pheasant feathers) Widows of Culloden, 2006-7 (page 173)

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen often used the raw materials of nature, and a striking example is this dress, which is entirely covered with pheasant feathers. The silhouette, with its long torso, is based on dresses from the 1890s.

The dress formed part of the 2006 collection, “Widows of Culloden”, which referenced a battle in the struggles between England and Scotland. As Trino Verkade explains:

TRINO VERKADE: Lee refers to it as the second half of “Highland Rape” because it refers back to the Culloden fight, but a lot more optimistic view of it. And I think, in his own words, it's using more beautiful finishes. It's less of an angry look, and it's a more positive view. And it was set up to balance the “Highland Rape” show.

ANDREW BOLTON: The collection was completed ten years after the seminal “Highland Rape” show, when McQueen had become an established figure in the fashion world.

Stop 432 Introduction: Romantic Naturalism

ANDREW BOLTON: In the last gallery of the exhibition, we encounter Romantic Naturalism. Nature was the greatest and the most enduring influence upon McQueen. He once said, “Everything I do is connected to nature in one way or another.” McQueen was often inspired by the forms and raw materials that are found in the natural world. And some of these materials can be seen in the galleries, such as feathers and flowers.

Stop 433 Plato’s Atlantis, 2010 (pages 185-195)

ANDREW BOLTON: The exhibition ends with the collection “Plato’s Atlantis”, which was McQueen's last collection while he was alive.

SARAH BURTON: It was the idea of sort of the reversal of evolution, how life would evolve back into the water if the ice caps melted and we were being reclaimed by nature. We had all these engineered prints that he'd developed, sort of looking at the morphing of species, natural camouflages, and aerial views of the land.

We had research on the boards and what he told us to do is he said, "I don't want to look at any research. Turn all the boards around." So he literally just worked from the fabric.

So what he would do is he would have an engineered print; and with that print he would place it on form and he would pin and construct these pieces that looked like they'd morphed out of the body themselves.

And only by taking the fabric and seeing how the fabric moved you could come up with something new--by creating it on a body because clothes are to be worn; they're not two-dimensional things. They are something that has to sit and mold onto a human being.

ANDREW BOLTON: The collection was streamed live over the Internet, in an attempt to make fashion into an interactive dialogue with the audience. I think what's particularly interesting is that for the Romantics, nature was the primary vehicle for the sublime, and for McQueen, technology was also a channel for the sublime, particularly the extreme space/time compressions produced by the Internet.

This is the last work on our tour. To hear a concluding message as you look at the last works in this area, press play.

Stop 460 Level 2: Conclusion

SARAH BURTON: I think with “Plato's Atlantis,” it was real perfection the way he executed every single piece. But knowing Lee, he would have probably gone somewhere completely different after “Angels and Demons.” He would always surprise you, and that was the joy of working with him, is he would always take it somewhere that was unexpected.

Every time he would take up a different theme or a different angle or a different technique and he would always push it forward, like, relentlessly pushing forward. And you could never really predict what he was going to do because he was so much his own person. His vision was so pure.

And he was really funny and he was really good fun to work for. And, you know, he was incredibly loyal and incredibly inspiring.

ANDREW BOLTON: McQueen once remarked, "I'm overly romantic," but it was precisely his romantic yearnings that propelled his creativity and advanced fashion in directions previously considered unimaginable.

This is the end of the tour. Thank you for joining us today.

The exhibition is made possible by Alexander McQueen ™.

Additional support is provided in partnership with American Express and Condé Nast.

The audioguide at the Metropolitan Museum is sponsored by Bloomberg.

This has been an Antenna International production.