Alexander McQueen: Fashion Set Falls Prey to Superb McQueen
By Godfrey Deeny
Photos by FW

PARIS, Mar 11, 2002/ FWD/ --- The image was ripe for a wisecrack.

Six blond Scandinavian wolves paced around inside cages to form the backdrop Saturday night for the Alexander McQueen show in Paris’ La Conciergerie, the former prison of aristocrats during the French Revolution.

"Fashion victims in wolves’ clothing," quipped one wag in a throng of guests admiring the wolves before the show.

Joked another, "And their names are Anna, Glenda…"

The puns were many, and the clothes pretty close to magnificent in the best-realized ready-to-wear collection McQueen has ever shown in Paris, including his collections with Givenchy.

As the lights went down, film director Tim Burton, whose illustrations graced the school-book invitation, dashed from backstage to the front row with Kate Moss and her squeeze Jefferson Hack.

With a grand organ bristling on the soundtrack, two of the hounds bashfully opened the show, led out by a lady in a Venetian carnival purple coat with a huge hood.

It was the most costume-like element in a collection that managed to convert audacious cutting and creativity into attractive and, almost certainly, commercially successful clothes.

The fall 2002 McQueen girl has a dominatrix attitude, heightened by the leather stitching, two-inch straps and bondage bands, which encircled the skillfully cut wool suits and dresses that formed the basis of the collection.

She’s tough yet sensitive in a snug leather dress in burgundy, topped by ruffled peasant frills.

She’s also a lass who favors a novel cut, such as the one seen in the double-waisted silver jeans.

McQueen’s is a big look, and not for the blushing violet, especially if it’s worn like Carmen Kass, who strutted out onto the brick floor of La Conciergerie attired in a transparent black silk negligee, knickers on display, and a black leather restrain covering her torso and even mouth, Hannibal Lecter-style.

The caged hounds never quite howled in the show, but Iggy Pop did, snarling out, "Now I want to be a dog!"

McQueen, who just closed a deal with the great Savile Row tailor H. Huntsman and Sons to produce his own line of bespoke men’s tailoring, appeared still slim and dressed in a finely cut suit, taking his bow to raucous applause.

This is one collection his fans are sure to wolf down.

Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen