Exhibition Report: Savage Beauty

I am finally home! I finished my 10 month contract on my current cruise ship, changed over the cast and got home safely. I was charged an obscene amount to get my bags home though, but that's another story :-)

Before I left New York I got the chance to see the Alexander McQueen exhibition, Savage Beauty, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In short it was spectacular.

Alexander McQueen is one of my heroes. His work combines soft and hard, tailored and draped, ordinary and fantastical, printed and plain. The exhibition was beautifully put together, staged in well designed spaces that reflected the feel of the pieces within.

Each section of the exhibition had an excellent and well informed introduction and included quotes from Lee throughout. These ranged from informative to profound to just plain funny! Here are a few of my favourites:

I spent a long time learning how to construct clothes, which is important to do before you can deconstruct them.

I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.

When you see a woman wearing McQueen, there's a certain hardenss to the clothes that makes her look powerful. It kind of fends people off.

Britain always led the way in every field possible in the world from art to pop music. Eve from the days of Henry VIII. It's a nation where people come and gloat at what we have as a valuable heritage, be it some good, some bad, but there's no place like it on earth.

As a place for inspiration it's the best in the world... You're inspired by the anarchy in the country.

Someone wrote that [the watch chains - from Highland Rape A/W 1995-6] were tampons... that's not even perverse; it's just gross.

I want to be the purveyor of a certain silhouette or a way of cutting, so that when I am dead and gone people will know that the twenty-first century was started by Alexander McQueen.

As I was reading the last quote, two girls were next to me and they laughed at it... but it's true. The styles that have been started by Alexander McQueen have seeped into the high street and been watered down for the general consumer. These people have now idea how influenced by him their wardrobes are!

This exhibition was profound and very sad for me. Alexander McQueen was a real artist and genius. His work and words speak to me on so many levels it is hard to explain. Seeing his work on display almost brought a tear to my eye as I remembered that he is no longer with us to create such great work. Sarah Burton will continue his legacy well, but the House of McQueen will never ben the same without Lee.

If you are in New York you need to go see this exhibition. If you can't make it get the book, every piece has been beautifully photographed and there is even stuff in there not in the exhibition.

You can see more photos from the exhibition on the Met's Flickr photostream here

Suck It!

My cast and I have become obsessed with the show My Life On The D List with Kathy Griffin. It was my friend Kyle's birthday and he is particularly in love with Kathy. I knocked him up this little offering which he absolutely adores!! I used satin stitch and backstitch and a little bit of thread blending for the silhouette of Kathy.

For the next two weeks I have cast change over on my ship so I will be MIA while I alter millions of costumes... wish me luck!

Is It A Bird?... Is It A Plane?...

So after my Spiderman embroidery, my friend who is obsessed with Superman asked me to do one for him. I chose to do the Superman logo in satin stitch and fill in the background with seed stitch. It didn't take as long as you would think! My friend loves it, but now I think I want to do a Superman outline like Spiderman... what do you think?!

My Spider Sense Is Tingling

When I went to Universal Islands of Adventure in Florida we saw a sweatshirt with Spiderman embroidered on it. My friend who is a huge Spiderman fan loved it, but the sweatshirt was super expensive so I said I would embroider it for him. The design was a really cool outline in red, blue and white in satin stitch - probably done by machine. I did it by hand of course! It didn't actually take as long as I thought as it is a simple outline. Now I kinda want to do a Superman version... maybe this will turn into a comic series?!

Hope For Japan - Finished!

My charity piece for Japan is finally finished! I decided to add a hand printed background and Japanese characters around the outside of the flag to finish it off...

When I get home in about a months time I am going to put this up for sale in my Etsy shop and the proceeds will go the the Red Cross to help Japan. If you're interested you can email me here

You can still donate to the Red Cross here as well

To Infinity and Beyond!

The International Space Station

As well as going to the Harry Potter Exhibit for my birthday, I also visited Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. I was fortunate enough to go on the day of the 30th anniversary of the first Space Shuttle launch. Columbia was the first shuttle sent into space that could be reused after its return and to commemorate the day Kennedy Space Centre had a presentation and lots of astronauts walking around talking to people and taking photos!

That would be Endeavour behind me, yes.

The Space Centre is very interesting. The best way to see everything is to take the bus tour. This takes you out to the observation deck, from which we could see Endeavour - the second to last shuttle Kennedy will currently launch - on launch pad A. It then takes you to see a replica of the Saturn 5 launch when space history was made. The tour is very well narrated by your bus drivers and there are some very interesting things to see, including a selection of space suits and, my fave, a space suit repair kit!

Endeavour on launch pad A


The Crawler used to move the shuttle to the launch pads


The Saturn 5's engines


A space suit repair kit!

After the bus tour we went back to the main visitors centre and saw the rocket garden - full of old rockets of course - and watched the Star Trek Live! show. This is lots of fun for kids. There is even an art exhibition to peruse of Kennedy related art.

The Rocket Garden


Inside a shuttle - still looking for the real astronauts we were promised!

At the end of the day we finally met a real astronaut. Bob Springer has spent over 200 hours in space, taken part in numerous experiments while up there and taken video footage in HD of our planet and its atmosphere for various documentaries - a very intelligent and space experienced man!

There he is! Our real astronaut Bob Springer!

Even though I do not consider myself a space nut, the Kennedy Space Centre was lots of fun. Add it to your list of great Florida attractions when you visit!

Exhibition Report: Harry Potter - The Exhibition

This week it was my birthday - yay!! I treated myself to the Harry Potter Exhibition that is currently at the Discovery Center in New York, just off of Times Square.

If you haven't managed to catch this exhibition as it tours the US, you are missing out! As a complete costume geek this exhibition was a real treat. The displays are set out in groups based on areas of the movies, for example, Griffindor Tower, Hagrid's Hut, The Forbidden Forest, Herbology etc. In each section there is a very well presented display of props, costumes and artifacts from the Harry Potter movies. Now, I am not a big fan of the movies, preferring the books instead, but it is the attention to detail that has made these movies successful despite my own opinions of them. Mostly, the costumes are well designed (I have a personal problem with the 'school uniform' aspect though) and there are quirky little touches that destinquish the wizards and witches from the muggles. For me, these were the most interesting things on display at the exhibition. Things like Sirius Black having a double collar on his button down shirt, Bellatrix Lastrange having a leather wand sheath sewn into the design of her corset, the intricate engravings on the Deatheater masks and the overlaid dyeing on the invisibility cloak are just a few I picked up.

This exhibition is fun and a visual feast. The props and sets are just as detailed as the costumes to create a world that you wish was real. The one thing that really surprised me was how big Hagrid actually was. I expected his size to be camera tricks and therefore the actually costume to be regular human sized. This is not the case! Hagrid is actually bigger than the other humans so Robbie Coltraine has a huge costume that must have been padded and stilted to the nines! Very interesting indeed!