Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Alexander McQueen Opens a Store in Los Angeles - Shows Celebs the Finger

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    Alexander McQueen Opens a Store in Los Angeles - Shows Celebs the Finger



    Does anyone have pictures of the store?



    This is from Independent


    McQueen shuns celebrity culture as he opens in LA



    By Susannah Frankel, Fashion Editor

    Wednesday, 9 April 2008






    You
    have to hand it to Alexander McQueen: the designer has cojones. On the
    eve of the opening of his flagship store on Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles
    ? and just when his contemporaries might be kowtowing to the city's
    celebrity-driven culture ? he made clear that he was courting a less
    brash brand of clientele.




    Of LA's leading lady, Paris
    Hilton, he remarked: "If she comes past the shop, hopefully she'll just
    keep walking. I don't really covet that sort of thing." One can only
    assume that the paparazzi princess speaks highly of him in return.



    For
    all the audacity of the gesture ? and let's not forget that McQueen,
    39, an east Londoner born and bred, is not only unusually plain-spoken
    given his profession but is also a media manipulator par excellence ?
    the statement is nothing if not a sign of the times.



    Because,
    while the likes of Dolce & Gabbana and Giorgio Armani persist in
    wooing Hollywood's finest, there is a growing feeling that the fashion
    establishment needs a challenge. And McQueen, with his
    none-too-diplomatic way with words, might just be the man to provide
    it.



    His new store, a sleek, futuristic 3,100-square-foot space
    which opened yesterday, is expected to take the West Coast by storm
    despite the economic downturn causing belts to be tightened in even the
    most palatial of Hollywood villas. Alexander McQueen CEO, Jonathan
    Akeroyd, said yesterday he expected the latest addition to the label's
    expanding empire to be among the brand's top three performers in retail
    sales.



    The label is certainly making an entrance, with a
    billboard above the store showcasing work by David Bailey, Nick Knight
    and Sam Taylor Wood, and a nine-foot-tall metal sculpture of a naked
    man, arms outstretched, emerging from the skylight. The lower half of
    the figure, Angel of the Americas, by the artist Robert Bryce Muir,
    extends into the shop itself.



    Such eccentricities are perhaps
    par for the course for the designer, who yesterday admitted that, "in
    times of recession, I think fashion is escapism".



    "When I started
    in fashion, England was in a recession with Margaret Thatcher as prime
    minister. I think it's a great time for new growth," he told the
    American trade magazine, Women's Wear Daily.



    It is now the stuff
    of fashion folklore that, a decade ago, Alexander McQueen politely
    declined to invite Victoria Beckham to his London show. His reason? The
    occasion in question featured a guest appearance on the catwalk
    courtesy of Aimee Mullins, the Paralympic athlete who had both legs
    amputated from the knee down as a child, sporting hand-carved cherry
    wood prosthetics designed by McQueen's own hand. He said then that VB's
    presence would detract from Mullins' modelling debut, but suffice to
    say that Mrs Beckham made no secret of being thoroughly displeased
    nonetheless.



    Last year McQueen reiterated his belief that fashion
    was "not about celebrity". "I can't get sucked into that celebrity
    thing because I think it's just crass. I work with people who I admire
    and respect. It's never because of who they are," he told US Harper's
    Bazaar. "It's not about celebrity; that would show a lack of respect
    for the work, for everyone working on the shows, because when the
    pictures come out it's all about who's in the front row. What you see
    in the work is the person itself. And my heart is in my work." Fine
    words indeed from the designer.



    Neither is McQueen simply
    averse to working with the famously beautiful per se. He has dressed
    everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Sarah Jessica Parker, from Bjork to
    Kate Moss in his darkly romantic and increasingly elaborate style. It's
    perhaps more that the designer, who fought hard to get to where he is,
    is less enamoured with those who are famous only for being, well,
    famous, than many of his ilk.



    In December 2000, following a
    four-year stint as creative director of Givenchy, McQueen sold a 51 per
    cent stake of his own company to the Gucci Group for an undisclosed
    eight-figure sum. This February, the brand made a profit for the first
    time following shop openings in London, New York and Milan. The Melrose
    Avenue store will be followed by another in Paris in 2009.





    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine
  • mesh
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2006
    • 976

    #2
    Re: Alexander McQueen Opens a Store in Los Angeles - Shows Celebs the Finger

    Maybe I'll check it out this weekend if I'm around thanks Faust. I like his attitude.

    Comment

    • Faust
      kitsch killer
      • Sep 2006
      • 37852

      #3
      Re: Alexander McQueen Opens a Store in Los Angeles - Shows Celebs the Finger



      [quote user="mesh"]Maybe I'll check it out this weekend if I'm around thanks Faust. I like his attitude.[/quote]



      Do let us know what it's like. I hope they buy all the crazy pieces that the NYC store (and no one else) does.

      Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

      StyleZeitgeist Magazine

      Comment

      Working...
      X
      😀
      🥰
      🤢
      😎
      😡
      👍
      👎