Beck has succeeded to do so too I think in this homage. The New York based photographer has been collaborating with web designer Kevin Berg to evolve and animate his image stills. There is no sound yet there are fleeting moments. Rather than frozen in time the image is captured, held for a moment and released once more to captivate. These moving silent images speak for themselves in a poetry outside of our mainstream experience.

In some ways they remind me of the impressions made by the work of the silent motion picture, of Charlie Chaplin’s 1931 City of Lights, almost a century ago, and by the mime-artisty of Marcel Marceau; both figures in whose presence, one might think, McQueen would possibly feel at home.

December’s Bergdorf Goodman windows still tracing through the memory. The cutwork in the silk duchess satin has stayed with me, as have the splashes of red, lace and maps. The black lace traces around heeled calves in a fretwork of twists and turns.

London milliner Philip Treacy speaks briefly about his collaborations with McQueen. The working relationship between the two was long-standing. The number of headpieces was vast in every collection, and like McQueen’s inspirations they were many and varied in theme. It is interesting to look back and see just how much McQueen drew on these collaborations, but also how skillfully he orchestrated their inclusion, and directed the theatrical productions.

His collections were usually controversial, but that term goes nowhere to describing the immense skill and intellect behind a man who is responsible for the consistent and unyielding elevation of his fashion into the realm of art. He influenced a generation, and not just in his homeland of Britain, but in the minds of designers and those who followed his work from the far reaches of the world.

He will be greatly missed, and has left a magnificent legacy. His final collection has an ironic bitter-sweet and eerily poignant emphasis; the beauty of the butterfly. images from style.com. Below is a clip of his Paris fall 2006 collection with Kate Moss in hologram.

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see? ≡

It is Caroll season! Yes, it is also carol season, and Bergdorf Goodman’s window displays for Christmas are celebrating both the single and double ‘L’ varieties with another spectacular array of windows into other worlds, specifically the worlds from the celebrated children’s classic ‘Alice in Wonderland‘ by Lewis Caroll.

In a delightful throwback to the Tim Burton exhibition at MoMA, and the upcoming release of his latest directorial work, Alice in Wonderland features in all the glory of characters, events and environments.

The windows are so full for this presentation I am posting them in installments. Here the work of Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs thrill on the marble tiles of the palace of the Queen of Hearts [and Clubs], and in the staircases and journey portals of Alice herself.

≡ Spoken by Alice; Lewis Caroll ‘Alice in Wonderland’ [D. Appleton. New York 1866]

The shared experience of cross-pollination amongst creatives in the fashion world [designers, film-makers, fashion photographers etc.] through Knight’s website, and in the form of this circle of collaborative participants, is now focusing on aspiring designers.  True to the ethos of transparency and divulged creative process [from start to finish] seven fashion innovators have provided their work as a springboard of inspiration.

For the exercise John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Yojhi Yamamoto, Matin Margiela, Junya Watanabe, Gareth Pugh and Antony Price have each exposed the trade secrets of one choice garment from their masterful collections in a competition to find the next trailblazers in Fashion.
Just two weeks are left to budding fashion designers planning to enter in the SHOWstudio award, London. The gauntlet has been thrown down and for the last two months many a hopeful has been busy behind their sewing machine, stitching their aspirations into being.
All of us are now eagerly awaiting the results of this very public ‘inspiration experiment’. The most successful garment will have the honor of being shown at Somerset House’s exhibit: SHOWstudio:fashion revolution, opening September 18th.
Those in attendance promise to include a panel of fashion experts including Nick Knight, Alistair O’Neill (Senior Lecturer & Senior Research Fellow of Fashion History and Theory at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design) Penny Martin (Rootstein Hopkins Chair of Fashion Imagery at the London College of Fashion) and Claire Catterall (Curator at Somerset). Those privy to the judges conversations are in for a treat. For even more celebrity value also expect Naomi Campbell, Comme des Garcons, Kate Moss and Bjork.

No doubt this will grow something live and kicking.

image at http://www.showstudio.com/project/designdownload/john.galliano