Robert Fairer’s 10 favourite photos from Alexander McQueen shows
From models being draped in rubbish and dancing until they dropped, peek backstage at Alexander McQueen’s dramatic fashion shows.
Runways drenched in rain, flanked by rubbish and set on fire. Spray-painting robots and a hologram. Models towering in sky-high “alien” boots, encased in a glass box and dancing until they dropped.
These are just some of the dramatic displays onlookers experienced at “visionary” fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen’s runway shows.
Photographer Robert Fairer was along for the ride, capturing McQueen and his muses backstage throughout his extraordinary career.
“Very few photographers were tolerated during the shows,” he recalled, noting he was one of the lucky ones.
Fairer – who was US Vogue’s exclusive backstage photographer for more than a decade – has selected 10 of his favourite photos from his time behind the scenes at McQueen shows.
These images, and about 30 others, are also on display, blown up to life-size, at NGV International as part of its Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse exhibition until April 16.
The exhibition has extended opening hours in its final week, opening an hour earlier (at 9am) from April 10-15 and from 9am-9pm on the final day, April 16.
More than 20 of the photographs will also stay at the gallery, with Fairer generously donating them to the NGV’s Campbell-Pretty Fashion Research Collection.
ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/alexander-mcqueen
1. Natural Dis-Tinction, Un-Natural Selection collection (spring-summer 2009)
Fairer says: “This is an important image because it illustrates the trust Lee had in allowing me in such close proximity taking this picture.
“Very few photographers were tolerated during the shows.
“But here, he was lost in himself working on the back of this jacket, making sure the fit was perfect … and allowed me to capture him.”
2. Natural Dis-Tinction, Un-Natural Selection collection (spring-summer 2009)
Fairer says: “I love this image, it always makes me smile. It means a lot because Lee is seen here so happy and mucking around backstage, hopping around and laughing.
“I like the fact that it illustrates there was fun behind the scenes and the mood not always as portrayed by others.
“All the girls loved to model in Lee’s shows and would do so season after season for years – in the early years, working for absolutely nothing, sometimes a pair of trousers a coat or jacket.
“Usually he would take a bow or wave on the runway and leave immediately.
“Here, he was just enjoying the show and the moment.”
3. Natural Dis-Tinction, Un-Natural Selection collection (spring-summer 2009)
Fairer says: “Movement is what my imagery is so often about. I love the way the dress has its own momentum and form, you can see so much detail. Once again, it highlights the fun going behind the scenes and the models’ excitement.
“These shows were tense prior to the performance, often because they pushed boundaries and the expectation was massive.
“But everybody was always so high at the end when it had gone well or received a standing ovation.”
4. The Horn of Plenty collection (autumn-winter 2009-10)
Fairer says: “Lee always worked with the best hair and makeup stylists, the groundbreakers of new styles and visionaries in their own metier.
“Here, you see hair stylist Guido Palau wrapping the carefully arranged tin cans on to the model’s head with cling film.
“He had at least 50 heads to pile up tin cans on and spray for this show. Each had to look iconic and different, some had headpieces too.
“This illustrates so well the lengths of creativity and ingenuity a Lee McQueen collaboration demanded, and the teamwork nearly always required of some four to five people to get the hair looking ready for the runway on time.”
5. The Horn of Plenty collection (autumn-winter 2009-10)
Fairer says: “Reminiscent of the Dutch Master, Vermeer, Philip Treacy created headpieces and hats out of umbrellas, lampshades, tyres, paper bags, cages, baskets, alongside the Guido Palau-assorted tin-can headpieces.
“This image becomes more and more powerful the longer you study it and understand the intended irony – ‘everything but the kitchen sink’.
“McQueen’s stance was that fashion, perhaps one of the most throwaway industries, needed to take responsibility for the future.
“Makeup artist Peter Philips referenced the performance artist Leigh Bowery with his inflated black and red lips, with bleached-out eyebrows and eyelashes that made for disturbing masks on the beautiful models’ faces.”
6. The Horn of Plenty collection (autumn-winter 2009-10)
Fairer says: “This was a shocking show in March 2009, because the catwalk set of a large rubbish pile and a cracked, mirrored floor made no real sense.
“I arrive at McQueen shows without an actual invitation, I am on the press list. This means I have no preconceptions about what I am going to see or what the narrative is.
“Since this collection, The Horn of Plenty (aka ‘everything but the kitchen sink’), the waste, greed, fast fashion narrative has only become more prescient.
“His dissatisfaction with the fashion world and man as an uncontrollable consumer becomes ever more visionary and prophetic.”
7. The Widows of Culloden collection (autumn-winter 2006-07)
Fairer says: “This photograph combines the original two: the collaboration between milliner Philip Treacy and Lee McQueen, Isabella Blow’s two closest champions and friends.
“My career began with them both in 1992 and it’s a reminder to me of their friendship, brought about through a desire to create the exceptional.
“No item is too avant-garde, but is always individual, always enhancing to the wearer.
“Their sources of inspiration were Isabella Blow, strong women, a bird and nature.
“It celebrates the wild, untamed, beautifully romantic, soft side of his clothing, yet still an extravagance with a flouncy blouse under the tailored tweed suit jacket.
“Philip’s winged mallard headpiece is a masterpiece of simplicity in its form and origin.”
8. Deliverance collection (spring-summer 2004)
Fairer says: “Karen Elson entrances in this image. Lifeless and still, but beautiful as she is carried off the stage in front of me. It was so strong an image.
“In this show, McQueen evoked the 1920s post-depression narrative ‘riches to rags’ (by re-staging Sydney Pollack film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?).
“The opening silver dress, worn twice, had become tarnished and threads unravelled the second time it was on view.
“Here lay another message about his life, and how he felt about the endless cycle of fashion shows and need for a performance until the death. It was October 2003.”
9. Plato’s Atlantis collection (spring-summer 2010)
Fairer says: “The legs, towering in these alien, Titanic and armadillo shoes, is an unforgettable fashion moment.
“When I took this photograph, I had no idea of what lay ahead – that it would be the last Lee Alexander McQueen show I would ever photograph, that the shoes would become the highly sought-after museum pieces and collectors’ items they have become to define an era and more specifically, a show that is now part of popular culture.
“It’s an extremely loaded image full of sadness for me too as the girls walk away.”
10. Joan collection (autumn-winter 1998-99)
Fairer says: “My friend seen here, Sarah Harmarnee, always used to tell Lee I was alright and should be let in to photograph his shows.
“Often, you only succeed when you have the support of others – exemplified here as Sarah needed help placing the headpiece on Polina’s head.
“Lee rushed over and assisted her. He was a gentleman and it’s a wonderful moment seeing them work together.”
Originally published as Robert Fairer’s 10 favourite photos from Alexander McQueen shows
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