THE DECODER

... was the price paid at auction for this Alexander McQueen Chinese brocade suit. Here’s its backstory

A rare collection of early designs by Lee Alexander McQueen is auctioned off

Ten years after his tragic death, Lee Alexander McQueen’s creative genius was last month showcased in a special sale by Boston’s RR Auction. On February 22, 74 pieces of rare early work by the British designer – including sketches, patterns and garments handsewn by McQueen himself – went under the hammer.

The pieces had been carefully conserved by Ruti Danan, former head of the McQueen studio and a friend of the designer. A member of his original studio team, Danan had maintained the collection of patterns, shoes and assorted personal effects since her time working with McQueen between 1994 and 1996. At that time in fashion, many studio team members went unpaid, and were given items in exchange for their work.

While Danan briefly wore some of the articles, she was also dedicated to preserving them, to ensure their longevity, especially since many were made by McQueen’s own hands. Her diligence was recognised when several of her archive pieces were chosen for both New York and London’s blockbuster exhibitions, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. “It’s a worldclass private collection of rare and one-of-a-kind early Alexander McQueen items,” says Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction.

The collection reiterates McQueen’s visionary approach, use of historical references and cinematic sense of showmanship. Among the highlights was this jacket and trouser suit cra ed from Chinese silk brocade. The jacket body is panelled like a corset and has double slashes across the ribs, with pale nude silkmesh inserts, a round collar and open slashed sleeves pulled back to a hook fastening on the rear centre waistline. The jacket closes with an open-ended metal zip and is lined in red silk taffeta. An extra piece of the same original material was included in the sale. The matching trousers, which were shown separately on the catwalk, feature rear internal accordion pleated panels at the calf. The fabric for the outfit was sourced by Danan from London’s Brick Lane during the preparation for the show.

The outfit was shown as part of McQueen’s spring/ summer 1996 collection, which was dubbed The Hunger. It marked a pivotal point in the designer’s career, when he started producing commercial versions of his subversive designs, and became more experiemental with fabrics and patterns.

The sale also included a sketchbook with 36 original McQueen design drawings, composed during a trip to Italy in the mid-1990s; a photo album with 88 behind-the-scenes photographs taken by Danan; drawings from The Hunger collection; and looks from McQueen’s controversial 1995 Highland Rape collection.“He was very good at pattern-making, proportion and construction, so he knew the starting point and the end point. He would cut and sew, and we would finish the garments. A lot of hand stitching was involved – prick-stitching, cross-stitching – and he would teach me different stitches. He used to do it so easily, so naturally. That is what really attracted me to him: he was a cra sman and hands on, he was a perfectionist, but he also had a rough edge,” Danan recalls in the official auction brochure.