long live McQueen

S and I paid a visit to the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met when it opened earlier this spring and managed to get there before the long lines. That's not to say the exhibit wasn't mobbed; we could barely get close enough to the clothing to really see much of it, and it's tricky to visit a show like this with a 6-year-old who can't see over everyone and who would rather be eating lunch at the park. In any case, I'll happily brave the crowds to see the show several more times this summer. It's by far and away the most spectacular fashion exhibit I've ever seen. I think the word Sublime is the best description of McQueen's designs, and of the show itself.

If you aren't coming to New York this summer, you can get still get a taste of the show via this video tour. You won't see the details of the clothing and will miss some of my favorite pieces, but it will give you the general sense of the show, at least.



I first fell in love with McQueen's work when I was finishing up my degree at FIT. McQueen and I were the same age (he died on my birthday, incidentally, not long before his own birthday), but he was already producing his spectacular clothing and shows when I was just changing careers and starting to study traditional tailoring techniques. It was that spray-painted dress (if you haven't seen this video before, you must watch it!) in the spring/summer 1999 show which captured my full attention. After than I followed his career with fascination. I think he was one of the fashion geniuses of our century, really, and it's hard to imagine any designer not being influenced by his work and by this show. It's truly amazing on both counts.

We visited the gift shop on our way out of the museum and purchased the catalog from the show. So while S was running up and down a hill in Central Park I cracked open the book and was blown away a second time.





The photos in the catalog are, at first glance, simple compositions of McQueen's designs on mannequins. Except that you very quickly notice that these aren't ordinary mannequins. The poses aren't standard mannequin poses, and the hands are feet are eerily life-like.


Have you ever seen a mannequin stand like this?


That's because the mannequins are actually live models. The models wore white paint and bands around their shoulders and wrists where the joints on actual mannequins are located. Heads were replaced or removed in editing. The result is perfect--you're not distracted by a real person, but the pages are vibrant and exciting.

Classic McQueen.

improvisational patchwork

I had such a great time at Denyse Schmidt's Improvisational Patchwork workshop last Saturday, I meant to take photos of her gorgeous studio. Instead, we got so busy making our blocks and discussing them and what we learned from the process that I forgot to use my camera. So I returned home mostly with photos of the quilt blocks we made.











If you get a chance to take the class, it's a great experience and very worthwhile. I'm still contemplating ways that I can incorporate some of what I learned into my own work.

Thanks for inviting me, Denyse!

loved

I'm still here. It's been an exceptionally busy spring, between the launch of Lisette, the release of my book, Quilt Market, and all the usual work that needs to be done. I've been holed up for the past couple of weeks, formatting the fall Oliver + S pattern collection. And there have been some personal items scattered into the mix, like my horrendous allergies. Wow, what a brutal spring this one has been! I've been a sneezing, coughing, teary-eyed mess. All in all, I'm looking forward to taking a few breaks this summer.

Not all the events of this spring have been happy ones. I need to just say before I get to the point of my post that I'm gradually realizing (I guess I'm a slow learner) life is full of challenges. I'm learning to embrace unexpected issues and to expect them as part of "normal" life. I think I feel less side-tracked when I understand that there will always be some difficulty or unexpected issue that crops up. It's not effective for me to expect everything to settle down after an issue has been resolved, because there will inevitably be another one somewhere down the road. So if I expect challenges and embrace them as part of normal life, I'm less surprised when they arrive. I don't think that's a fatalistic perspective--just a small dose of reality to help keep everything balanced and in perspective and maybe to help me remember to celebrate little victories, too.

The reason I mention this is because last fall my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. This came as a tremendous shock to everyone in our family, since my mom had just finished treatment for breast cancer not six months earlier. But today is my sister's final round of chemo, and she should be feeling better in a week or so. She's handled all the extra attention gracefully, and I'm very proud of her for the ways that she's been both weak and strong through this entire process.

My sister and her family are surrounded by a loving community who have helped to take very excellent care of them during the past six months, and one of her dear friends organized a quilting bee to show her support. We each sewed a quilt block, and a couple of weeks ago a group of us got together to do a little quilting and to celebrate and support my sister. I think I counted ten women who assembled, and as we quilted we got to know each other, since we come from several different parts of my sister's life. These are strong women who each have experienced their own challenges and victories and have each contributed to my sister's treatment in different ways. It was an honor to meet them and to see how they each play a part in my sister's life. (I'm really restraining myself from using the quilt as a metaphor, here...)

Everyone signed a patch for the back of the quilt. I had the honor of signing for my sisters, my mother, and my grandmother, all of whom contributed blocks but live too far away to attend the party.

Here she is with it, almost finished. (I think she and the quilt both look fantastic, by the way.)

And with her friend, Genna, who organized the bee and has put many hours into it.

Genna did an amazing job with the back, too. Don't you just feel the love when you see this?

And I need to close this post with a little reminder: have you checked or been checked recently?

Please don't forget.