Running through July 31, "Savage Beauty" features more than 100 ensembles and 70 accessories covering his 16-year career, from the majestic to the macabre. Clothing spans from his 1992 Central St. Martins postgraduate collection based on Jack The Ripper (a red-and-white, thorn-print silk coat lined with real human hair), to the final runway collection, "Angels and Demons," presentated after his death in February 2010, and steeped in religious imagery (a gilded feather shroud).

With haunting background music and darkened galleries, "Savage Beauty" mimics the "uneasy pleasure" of experiencing one of McQueen's runway extravaganzas, which Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton likens to "avant garde installations" and "performance art."

Some of the exhibition's many treats are films of McQueen shows, including "It's Only A Game" (spring-summer 2005), which cast models as chess pieces in a battle of East vs. West, and "No. 13," (spring-summer 1999), which featured a model being spray-painted by two robots. -- [ SOURCE ]

The curator [Andrew Bolton] promised that the exhibition, at the Met from May 4 to July 31 and launched by the annual benefit gala, will seek to recreate the incredible excitement that attended McQueen’s runway shows. As it turns out, McQueen’s first graduate collection, based on the film Taxi Driver, was shown at this very hotel (speaking of contradictions) and enthusiasm was drummed up by Isabella Blow, running through the Ritz corridors and calling out, “Come see the rack of clothes!”

This was only the first of the innovative performances that audiences came to expect from McQueen’s catwalk extravaganzas, Bolton explained, spectacles that would leave you breathless, hovering on the edge of credulity, faintly repelled, and utterly enthralled. In service to these conflicting emotions, the Met has delved into the McQueen archives and also relied heavily on the fresh memories of colleagues and friends including Stella McCartney and Sarah Burton, the current creative designer for the label.

The exhibition will be arranged by theme: “interpretative rather than chronological,” according to Bolton, in galleries that will include “The Savage Mind” and “Romantic Gothic.” The curator quoted McQueen as admitting that he loved accessories because of their sadomasochist connotations, and said that one gallery, entitled, “Cabinet of Curiosities,” will explore the glorious fetishized objects created by milliner Philip Treacy and the jeweler Shaun Leane, both close collaborators and friends of the late designer. -- [ SOURCE ]