Show Review: Alexander McQueen Fall 2009

Last night my buddy Avon and I followed the signs around Paris’ Bercy stadium for the Alexander McQueen show:

I’m a huge fan of McQueen’s edgy dresses, skirts, and big shouldered jackets (think Beyonce en concert), and I was expecting to see a continuation of his practical pieces on the runway. Most designers thus far have presented collections that were largely wearable, as YSL paraded tops that anyone could rip off a model and wear to work the next day.

Oh, not so with McQueen:

I was shocked, awed, and thrown for a loop. Gasping, pointing, and uttterly thrilled. Have you ever seen anything like this?

With a middle finger raised to the recession, McQueen offered fantasy, theater, and couture like combinations for Fall 2009. With relics of his past in a scrap metal like heap in the middle of the runway, it seemed McQueen was presenting a New World/Post Apocalyptic order, which shunned practicality in favor of color, excess, and luxe:

In the show program, he admitted to referencing Christian Dior’s hounds tooth check pattern, which was obvious with the first few looks:

But as Christian Dior said ‘bullocks’ to budgets with his revolutionary New Look, it seemed McQueen was saying the same to our current fiscal crisis, using fabrics like organza, cock feathers, nappa leather, and snake jacquard, to “turn the bourgeois fashion system…on [its head].”

The models themselves looked alienesque with their kabuki makeup, slow gates, and high as the sky shoes:

Highlighting that McQueen is thoroughly out of this world. The final walk:

All hail McQueen!

Pictures care of Style.com.