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As Alexander McQueen gets his skates on, John Davidson reports on London Fashion Week's finale Let it snow! That was the technical instruction which brought Alexander McQueen's spectacular runway show to a spellbinding conclusion. Models purposefully traversed his vast ice-covered set in the resulting blizzard of artificial flakes to create the most magical moments of London Fashion Week.
McQueen's inspiration had been The Shining - Stephen King's psychotic thriller set in a frozen wasteland, the movie version of which starred Jack Nicholson. Naming this collection "The Outlook" after the remote hotel in which so much of the horror unravels on screen, McQueen engendered expectations of a macabre presentation. Yet, with increasing maturity McQueen has abandoned shock tactics for finesse.
Although lens-grabbing showstoppers included a coiled metal corset and a skirt fabricated from sheet aluminium, there wasn't a severed limb in sight - just fabulous frocks and tailoring refined enough to provide compelling evidence of this designer's pole position within British fashion.
There has always been a lyrical quality within McQueen's work. But where once the mood of his shows would have been darkly gothic, the designer seems to have lightened up....