With a look at William Blake's poetry and romantic art, Alexander McQueen's new men's collection arose

Alexander McQueen’s legacy finds refuge in the artist William Blake’s dreamlike universe, between clothing’s avant-garde and gender issues’ breakdown.

A mystical and dreamy poetry. A fantasy world populated by foreign and mythological figures. The goal of the English William Blake, romantic poet and visionary engraver who lived between the second half of the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries, was to aim unconditionally at escapism, an artistic place that has always been familiar to creatives. True creatives like Alexander McQueen, who began by finding refuge in a theatrical aesthetic detached from the contemporary of each moment.

It is precisely this poetic that Sarah Burton, current creative director of the British brand, faithfully refers to. In the new SS22 Menswear collection, concepts of alienation and escape from today’s world explode in the romantic shapes and the intense and nuanced colors of the couture suits. As well as the sketches and illustrations taken from the art of William Blake, which are found refuge in the silhouettes decorated with graffiti and in the puffy shoulder pads of the jackets. “The collection aims to attract the concept of imagination as a pure form of escape. It is based on lightness, air and water, and on the beauty that emerge from the darkness”, declared the designer.

Then, items cancel the gender difference’s concept by evading the society’s patterns and aiming for fluid clothing. The philosophy perpetuated in the new collection aims to normalize the sartorial details and fabrics such as chiffon, embroideries, ruffles, tulle and organza, that acquire a new shape and open up towards a new inclusive horizon.

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Priscilla Cafaggi

Priscilla è una fashion editor laureata in storia della moda. Ama il vintage, il minimalismo… in poche parole una persona eclettica. Infatti, se dovesse scegliere due persone per andare a cena fuori sarebbero Jil Sander e Alessandro Michele.