The McQueen years… (part three)

Where: Paris – When: 6th October 2009 – What: Backstage at the Alexander McQueen show

Last but not least of my adventures at la casa de McQueen…
After a week working day and night for the sake of fashion with just a few distractions to keep us away from our duties (…castings, interviews, and an express visit from Anna Wintour) it was finally there…

The day of the fashion show!

9 am arrival at the studio…
Although during the first days everybody tends to make an effort to look good/presentable, on the last day nobody really cares or tries… When a shower is the minimum requirement, make up is seen as an act of bravery… It’s a miracle if we only remember our names! Beside the general exhaustion, we were all really excited as we were finally going to see our work come to life and that was priceless (or in this case sleepless).

Even though we worked for a week non stop it still felt like everything needed to be done… While some students were packing up the finished clothes to take to the venue I was working like crazy on the same jacket for the past 5 days with Ms Flo and it felt like it was going nowhere… We had the head of the studio Sara Burton (now creative director of the label) coming in for check up every now and then.
Along with us on the late wagon was the titanic dress, the jellyfish suit and the shipwrecked dress. By 5pm all the capable persons of the studio where requisitioned for help on those four pieces. Even if you were just passing by to ask for a pen… Well, you had to help.

Around 6pm we all went to the show location to continue working on our allocated pieces. Team McQueen was the first to arrived but soon we had the make up artists, hair dressers, nail technicians, catering team, models, photographers, journalists, VIPs, security guys, health and safety guys, Pr people… No need to say that it became crowded in no time.

The four dresses finished we were ready to dress the models. This can be a difficult task looking at the designs but it went alright. It had to. The secret of the McQueen silouhette lies in a 22 inch (it can go from 22 to 24) waist cincher (55-60cm) which helps create the hourglass shape that most models don’t have due to their small frames. From the moment all the models are dressed it goes really fast…

 
Show’s over.
On the front row everybody claps, backstage everyone hugs. Suddently the whole room is filled with love. Yes we all love each other, even if we didn’t the day before. It’s like a new beginning. We made it! From now on we can take on the world… ! Or at least that’s the general spirit.
This was the last time I saw Alexander McQueen happy, as after that show I left the team for other adventures… Sadly it was his last show too… I didn’t know back then that it was the last time I would ever saw him, otherwise I would have said something to him… not much, just: thank you.

“Clothes and and jewellery should be startling, individual. When you see a woman in my clothes, you want to know more about them. To me, that is what distinguishes good designers from bad designers.” A.Mcqueen

Watch the video of the show here