Alexander McQueen: Sublime, Perverse McQueen
By Godfrey Deeny
Photos by FW

LONDON, Feb 21, 2001/ --- Once a wild boy, always a wild boy.

With his new backer, Gucci CEO Domenico De Sole, sitting front-row at the London presentation of his Fall 2001 show, Alexander McQueen sent out a collection that mixed the sublime with the perverse.

McQueen transformed a dank London warehouse into a fantasy playground replete with a roundabout where the models in leather skirts cut to look like lace, satin crepe dresses and back-to-front dresses swirled around on brightly colored toy horses.

Gucci plans to open McQueen stores in all the major fashion capitals. At present there is only one on London's tony Conduit Street.

This collection certainly contained plenty of commercial items: slinky jersey dresses in beige and lemon, some divine molded patent leather pants and skinny dresses in camel and chocolate.

Now that's he's saying goodbye to LVMH and his fellow Briton John Galliano at Christian Dior, McQueen also had the audacity to make a play for the Galliano market of romantic, bias cut dresses.

But being McQueen, the mood was also decidedly ominous. One model dragged a gold skeleton around the catwalk. Another had an animal skeleton wrapped around her neck.

"I wanted to explore the sinister side of being a child, as well as have some fun," McQueen told journalists after taking his bow and very grandly shaking the hand of De Sole. English insularity never ceases to amaze.

Though De Sole is one of the most powerful men in European luxury - second only to LVMH boss Bernard Arnault - few people in London seemed to recognize Gucci's Italian executive.

Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen