It might have been entitled "The McQueensberry Rules," as an ironic reference to the boxing rules endorsed by John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, but from the look of the first model who strode down the catwalk, you felt that Alexander McQueen’s Autumn/Winter 2009-10 collection was more about baddies than boxers.
The young men clad in sharply tailored coats and dark suits, wearing hats, carrying a walking stick and sporting a deadly white make up instantly conjured up in your mind the part of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in which Mr Enfield tells his friend Mr Utterson about the horrid vision of Hyde trampling over a young girl and leaving her screaming on the ground.
Soon, though, the literary references turned into cinematographic hints: there was a taste of tailored West à la Sergio Leone in the long coats; echoes of the costumes by Milena Canonero for Alex and his droogs in A Clockwork Orange appeared in the woollen long johns with codpieces worn with ample parkas and black hats; the red flowery print that decorated a shiny black coat was very Bram Stoker's Dracula, looking like fresh blood sucked out from a vampire’s victim's neck, while the funereal skinny black suits were a crossover between Nosferatu and Mario Bava’s Black Sunday.
McQueen’s references to boxing and to films such as Dynamite Dan and Gentleman Jim were wisely mixed and balanced with elements taken from workwear: blacksmith’s leather aprons were paired with long johns for a sexy look, butcher’s chainmail aprons were used to give a punk touch to grey suits.
Scary and at times disturbing, McQueen’s catwalk was infinitely more interesting than the other catwalks presented yesterday. The British designer managed to bring into his collection more variation with great cinematic references that merged menswear with costume design and brought a bit more theatricality and drama to the Italian fashion capital.
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