Alexander McQueen Fall/Winter 2010

Thank you thank you thaaaaaaaaaaank you to The Cut  and Fashionista for this video!!! I saw the McQueen collection, and I thought to myself, "How beautiful!" but it wasn't until I saw this video then I realized how utterly exquisite all the pieces really are!
In the entire fall runway season, no collection was as stirring and evocative as that by the late designer Alexander McQueen. The 40-year-old British designer committed suicide in his London home last month.

McQueen continued to experiment with ideas from his last collections, reportedly engineering prints by digitally capturing entire works of art and weaving them into fabrics. Inspiration ranged from Byzantine art and Old Master paintings, and each look was worn with a bronzed cap, some spiked with a Mohawk of gilded leaves like a Roman war helmet.

The results were breathtaking dresses and gowns, draped and embroidered with antiqued gold sequins that appeared to be, quite literally, wearable masterpieces. These were not commercial clothes. Instead, they were examples of a virtuoso at work, someone who was flexing his creative muscles and demonstrating his capacity to dream. The collection was unveiled in an intimate salon in the headquarters of Artemis, the holding company for Gucci Group, which owns Alexander McQueen and plans, for now, to continue the label.
With golden wings tucked under the hem of one dress and the prints of doves and celestial bodies on others, it seems McQueen wondered about life and death as he draped and folded these garments. The final look was the most breathtaking. The model, with her hair hidden under a shimmering skullcap, wore a coat of gilded feathers. A plume of gold embroidered tulle burst from beneath its hem. As the model stood silent and impassive, she looked like an angel with her wings folded protectively around her luminous body.

While McQueen had featured dark, Gothic themes in the past, this season's medieval look is a sharp departure from last fall's reptilian theme. That was true to form for Mr. McQueen, whose style often took unpredictable and theatrical turns: What united all the collections was an unerring mix of art and precise, expert tailoring.