“Fashion is the armour to survive the reality of everyday life” – Bill Cunningham.
Renowned in both the fashion and artistic worlds, for they so often intersect, Alexander McQueen’s unique career and tragically short life are brought to the screen in Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s co-directed documentary.
Sometimes called the “the hooligan of English fashion”, McQueen’s talent for unique and grotesque designs and a penchant for shock tactics during his runway shows quickly earned a reputation in the couture world. There were few others like McQueen in the halls of the fashion industry, and the dedication and depth of his fans made sure that he was popular from the very beginning.
With insider access to McQueen’s private life and many hours of home movies, this will be a treat for any fan of his, or anyone with a passing interest in the world of fashion. At first glance he seems like the most unlikely person to be a leading figure in the ivory tower of European fashion. He looked more like a football hooligan or a pub geezer and spoke like someone doing a Vicky Pollard impression. Yet his designs are some of the most recognisable in the art world – he’s the man who dressed David Bowie during his late ‘90s tour and it’s obvious where Lady Gaga got the inspiration for some of her more baffling fashion choices.
McQueen was no stranger to going to a dark place, and the wonderfully gothic animation that links the documentary together is inspired. The film is split into different chapters corresponding to the fashion show that he was working on at that stage in his career. The further we go the darker it gets, reflecting McQueen’s own fraying mental and physical health which ended in a tragic death by suicide at the age of 40. By the final scenes the aesthetics wouldn’t look out of place in a horror film. Credit is due to the four members of the visual effects department.
Like all special interest documentaries McQueen hits the hurdle where those who aren’t already familiar with the material will likely be lost. Existing fans will get all they wanted and more, but those who stumble into this man and his tale will likely find it esoteric. Fashion is a labyrinthine world that doesn’t always make sense to newcomers. There are times when the strange clothes – and with McQueen when it gets weird it gets very weird – mixed with the voiceover telling us how brilliant and groundbreaking this all was verge on parody. However, as Andy Warhol once said: art is what you can get away with.
Cinema is often accused of being ‘parasitic’ because it takes something from every other branch of the art world and uses it for itself. Fashion, with the unique visuals and the confidence to put vanity front and centre, seems to be the branch that marries well with documentaries. There seems to be a new fashion documentary every year, the best of them being Bill Cunningham New York, and McQueen has earned its place as the one for 2018.
McQueen is in cinemas from 6th September through Madman Films.
