Alexander the great

一代大師的緬懷，追憶Alexander McQueen

近日，著名時尚歷史學家 Judith Watt 撰寫了鬼才設計師 Alexander McQueen 的最新傳記《Alexander McQueen: The Life and the Legacy》。本書詳細的記錄了鬼才 McQueen 的事業生涯和生活瑣碎。但這不是一本純粹的傳記，而是專注于他的生活和工作。從早期的裁縫學徒到他在中央聖馬丁藝術與設計學院里的學習，再到生涯最後一場巴黎時裝秀，記錄著大師的一生。Watt 從 McQueen 工作過的同事里收集到大量的一手資料，讓讀者們更容易走進這位傳奇鬼才設計師的藝術世界里。

There have been three designers whose work changed the way women looked and whose influence has continued: Coco Chanel, Yves St Laurent and Lee Alexander McQueen. That’s the view of fashion historian Judith Watt, author of a new book on McQueen, one of several on the designer published this season. McQueen took his own life nearly three years ago at the age of 40.

Watt’s book, though not a biography, concentrates on the designer’s life and work. It provides fascinating insights into his early training as a tailor, with first-hand accounts from people who worked with him, and chronicles the background and inspiration behind each of his collections from the first ones in London right up to the final runway shows in Paris.

The book covers the formative years in Savile Row and Central St Martins, his time in Givenchy and finally the years at Gucci culminating in the last collections and his legacy. The illustrations are lavish and demonstrate the breadth and scale of his work from its earliest beginnings to the memorable, confrontational, later collections in Paris. In addition to some of the more familiar imagery, there are many photographs and drawings that have not been seen before.

McQueen’s Scottish roots were, he once said, “everything” to him and informed one of his first collections called Banshee (he was a great fan of Sin　ad O’Connor) to one of his last called Highland Rape. His cinematic sense of the spectacle made invitations to his shows in Paris the most sought after in the French fashion week. He launched low-rise bumster trousers, reintroduced tailoring for women and experimented with silhouette, proportion and spiral cutting around the body. Today, his name lives on under the gifted hand of Sarah Burton whose approach is gentler, “the shocks and jaw-dropping brilliance have dimmed”, but is a thriving business that last year had sales of 1 million in the UK, Italy and the US and million profits.

（英文信息來自倫敦藝術大學）