Christine Tjia

Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas P. Campbell and Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton unveiled images and details of the exhibition, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, from May 4 to July 31 2011 in New York. It featured fantastical creations from each of McQueen’s collections, one hundred pieces of ready to wear from the McQueen archives and approximately seventy accessories - beginning with Nihilism (1994) and ends with his posthumous collection Angels & Demons (2010).

The exhibit coincide with the released of the book, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty by Andrew Bolton, which will include an interview with McQueen's sucessor, Sarah Burton and feature McQueen's most iconic and radical pieces.

McQueen was the most influential, imaginative, and provocative designer of his generation and was best known for his astonishing and extravagant runway presentations to provoke reactions from his audience.

I have always been awed by not only the thematic underpinnings to his work but also his innovative use of materials. Feathers became a skirt, alligator heads peeked out of jacket epaulettes, carved wooden boots became prosthetic legs, a jawbone became jewelry, mollusk shells became a corset. His creations were an outlet for his deepest emotions, often the darkest aspects of his imagination. 

Seeing some of the divine pieces, I was thrilled by this recognition of British fashion in the world as well as his stand as an artist in his own right, even if his extraordinary and rare artistic vision was not widely appreciated. Each piece does the artist justice. The word "designer" does not fully capture his genius. McQueen was said,

How I wish I was there admiring each piece in the exhibition, like how I did with Valentino. Oh well, throwing my hands back in the air, lying comfortably on my chair, shutting my eyes closed, I can already imagine the book looking great on my coffee table. =)

The Singapore Repertory Theatre’s (SRT) acclaimed Shakespeare in the Park returned again with a production of the tragedy Macbeth.

Long before vampires and witches become fashionable, Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, one of his most dazzling and mysterious masterpieces. I was fascinated by the political intrigue, impressed by the love exciting battle scenes and most of all, awed by the relish luscious language (which made me wonder how life would be if we all communicate in it).

Directed by the celebrated British director Nikolai Foster (Flashdance on the London West End, the UK tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects of Love), Macbeths’ destructive, volatile and sexually charged relationship will be brought to the fore in this contemporary take on The Bard’s last great tragedy. Foster trimmed peripheral scenes and characters to propel the rhythm of his Hollywood thriller-esque Macbeth with bloody battle scenes, anachronistically-detailed costumes, quirky props and pyrotechnic blasts - belched flames and smoke. He was able to give the audience an immersive experience with four-dimensional production - sound (some of the gunshots were slightly loud), light, music and murder by weaving the outdoor environment into the production's story line.

My fave are Adrian Pang (always), who played the luckless General and handles the dramatic final scenes with aplomb and the three witches, who deserved all the applause for their realness in the characters. The malevolence and spookiness of the witches are portrayed perfectly. During intermission, they crept and crawled as well as scorned at the audience, successfully sets the mood for the following scenes and subsequently won my heart. The interplay of ambience and stage lighting also contributed much to the sinister atmosphere.

All in all - sitting on a picnic mat, with blessed weather, beneath the clear evening sky with gentle wind stroking your face, watching Shakespeare's most famous supernatural suspense-thriller of all time kept me quite literally bewitched and gave me an unforgettable experience!