First I want to say, I have so much respect for Sarah Burton for filling Alexander McQueen’s shoes after he died. It could have ruined her name and reputation in fashion had she failed, but she didn’t. The house Alexander McQueen is still at the top of the fashion industry…Sarah Burton was named one of the 100 most influential people in Time Magazine on April 2012 and was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to the British fashion industry. Chapeau!!

In 2011 the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted a posthumous exhibition of McQueen’s work  titled Savage Beauty. The exhibition’s elaborate staging included unique architectural finishes and soundtracks for each room. Despite being open for only three months, it was one of the most popular exhibitions in the museum’s history.

I flew to New York in May 2011, just to visit the exhibition and it was the best money I’ve ever spent on fashion! I left my hotel early, hoping to avoid the crowd which stood in line every day, but no such luck. As soon as I reached the floor were the exhibition was to be found, I saw a huge amount of people patiently waiting behind a fence. I joined the line and it must have taken an hour and a half before it was my turn to enter.

Inside it was so crowded you could only shuffle slowly from one item to the other, but because it was so dark inside and the music directed me into a certain mood, it felt like I was on my own in Alexander McQueen’s amazing world. I was impressed by the outstanding craftmanship each piece showed. I knew already McQueen was a fantastic craftsmen, but seeing the clothes so nearby I noticed he was even much better I’d ever realised.

Alexander McQueen didn’t start a new design with the silhouette of the front (or back), he started his designs with a silhouette ‘en profile’ (from the side). He first decided on the theme for a show, before beginning to design the collection. His education included an apprenticeship at the Saville Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard where he learned all about impeccable tailoring, later he joined theatrical costumiers Angels and Bermans, where he learned all about pattern cutting. Next to being a creative wonder these skills helped to make him into one of the best fashion designers ever, he know exactly what a seam or a cut could accomplice in a garment.

The fantastic craftmanship he owned, he also looked for in the people he collaborated with and that’s what made the exhibition so incredible: not only the explosion of creativity in all designs, but also the perfectionism in the finish of them. Being an admirer of craftmanship, Savage Beauty was Walhalla.

The photographs for the catalogue are taken by fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø

There has been rumor of  the exhibition going to London, but so far it hasn’t happened.

The catalogue of the exhibition is a piece of art by itself, with a hologram picture of Alexander McQueen’s face turning into the picture of a skull.  At the museum shop you could also buy a miniature replica of the famous Armadillo shoe by McQueen. You can order the catalogue/book at the Metropolitan Museum shop or at www.amazon.com

After Kate Moss was pilloried by the public and the fashion world (for using cocaine), Alexander McQueen proved to be true friend and honoured her by showing an amazing moving hologram of her at the end of his fall/winter runway show 2006. To me the entire affair seemed so hypocritical, knowing how many people do the same thing (every day), also some of the people who were eager to judge her!

If you want to see or read more about the exhibition, visit http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/

During one of my visits to New York, I found this amazing book of a photographer I never heard of: Karlheinz Weinberger. At that time I worked together with a stylist to produce a series of fashion-stories for a magazine called BLVD. One of the stories we made was based on the photographs of Karlheinz Weinberger.

KARLHEINZ WEINBERGER’S WORK IN HIS STUDIO

KARLHEINZ WEINBERGER’S WORK ON LOCATION

  

  

In 2000, Weinberger’s exhibition catalog Karlheinz Weinberger: Photos 1954-1995  was published and has become a hard-to-find collectors item.

I’m selling my original exhibition cataloge Karlheinz Weinger: Photos 1954-1995. The cover is a bit damaged on the left top corner, but the inside and all pictures are in a used-very good condition.

Born in a middle-class Jewish family in highly anti-semitic Russia of 1902, little Nutya Kotlyrenko was shipped off to America at the age of eleven. At Ellis Island he took the Americanized surname his brother and cousins had already adopted, Cohn, and unable to write or spell his first name, he left Ellis Island with a botched version of it: Nudie.

‘I guess that the man never knew what a favor he did me by giving me that name,” Nudie wrote later in his life, “but it’s been a trademark for years. People are always impressed by an unusual name, and Nudie has suited me just fine.”

Nudie grew up poor in New York City’s garment district, apprenticing under tailors and dressmakers while dreaming of a career in music and movies. After years of traveling the United States working odd jobs, he wound up back in New York city making g-strings and burlesque costumes for strippers in Times Square at a shop called ‘Nudies for the Ladies’.

After a number of business ventures and financial hardships, the Russian immigrant who dreamed of being a singin’ cowboy moved out to San Fernando Valley along with his wife Bobbie, operating a small tailoring business out of their garage. Unable to afford a decent sewing machine or fabric to work on his own designs, Nudie decided in 1947 that country vocalist Tex Williams would be his springboard into burgeoning field of cowboy costuming.

The couple soon found celebrity by selling wildly embroidered, rhinestone-studded duds to cowboy stars, country singers and … Elvis Presley. (A $10,000 gold lamé number made the cover of Rolling Stone and netted a profit of $ 9,950.)

Not knowing of the story is true, its been said Bobbie inspired her husband for the logo the company used on its labels for more than 20 years; One evening in the early 1940’s, Bobbie emerged from the boudoir wearing nothing but a cowboy hat, boots and a holster and coyly asked her husband,”When are you going to make the rest of the outfit?’ The result was what became known as the ‘naked cowgirl’ label. After Nudie converted to Christianity around 1963, the cowgirl was clothed…, making the old-label garments collector’s items.

Nudie and Bobbie produced clothes for many famous celebrities, which are now museum pieces. Mr. Cohn died in 1984, Bobbie passed away in 2006. it is unclear which one of the couple came up with the Nudie motto: “It is better to be looked over than overlooked.”….

Other designs of Nudie’s rodeo tailors

Nudie’s rodeo tailor’s influence on fashion:

The Nudie style still inspires fashion designers like Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford, Miuccia Prada and for his first Balmain collection SS 2012, Olivier Rousteing looked to Nudie Cohn’s rhinestone-covered suits….

Miu  Miu collection SS/2011

Balmain  collection SS/2012

Fashion photographer Craig McDean filmed Amber Valetta in a humble salute to Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors.

http://showstudio.com/project/made_in_hollywood/filmCraig Mcdean

In 2011, Belgian fashion museum  MoMu presented  Dreamsuits. Designs by Nudie Cohn, the Rodeo Tailor – featuring the collection of Bobbejaan Schoepen’ in the MoMu Gallery, an exhibition of fascinating outfits, accessories and ephemera by the legendary Nudie Cohn.