Analyse him: Alexander McQueen S/S 2010

I often tend to dedicate longer posts to Alexander McQueen’s collections since I think the British designer always makes interesting points about fashion, art and society.

McQueen’s menswear collection for the next Spring/Summer season, for example, focused on an interesting theme: entitled “Analyze That”, the collection tackled the agony and the ecstasy behind the creative process.

Exploring this theme with a traditional catwalk may have proved tricky, but McQueen opted for a short film made in collaboration with British photographer David Sims that showed a young tortured artist smearing clay on walls.

The collection – showcased in a nearby room – featured the sort of clothes an artist may be wearing while creating a work of art: ballpoint pen scribbles and surreal oil/coffee stains were printed on shirts; worn out trousers were paired with long oversized cardigans pierced by little holes; patchwork printed jackets were matched with paint splattered trousers and shoes.

Workwear was echoed in the Thayaht-meets-mechanic overalls, while jackets, shirts and trousers with large prints of paint-smeared hands seemed to have been stolen from the workshop of a painter.

Among the best pieces there were a suit with long streaks of dribbling paint and jackets, shirts and waistcoats with disturbing prints of stains evoking Rorschach tests.

It was interesting to see how, rather than opting for a collection inspired by the work of one artist as designers often do, McQueen focused on that delicate process that precedes a work of art, purposely staining with casual patterns of paint his tailored garments, showing as a whole a more relaxed and less theatrical, yet rather "tortured" collection.