Over the years, a number of works have been produced exploring various aspects of the fashion industry and the legendary designers within it, allowing the public rare insight into one of the world’s most elite and mysterious spheres. And so, when it was announced this month that Jack O’Connell, famous for his stint on British cult TV show Skins and the Angelina Jolie-directed Unbroken, would be portraying Lee McQueen (better known as Alexander) in a biopic about the designer’s life, the fashion world was elated. The film will focus on the time leading up to McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection, ‘Plato’s Atlantis’, which was one of the designer’s most highly praised collections, embodying his visionary flair for blurring the boundaries between fashion and art. It is undeniable that film, fashion, and art are inherently linked and no-one demonstrated this more accurately than McQueen; his shows were spectacles of fashion tied in with performance art, often in collaboration with artists and utilising ground-breaking technology to shatter the boundaries of the fashion industry as we knew it. We have witnessed fashion flicks come and go, from the infamous The Devil Wears Prada to The First Monday in May (the documentary following the annual Met Gala), but McQueen above all seems to be the perfect fit for pairing fashion with film.

The high-end sector of the fashion industry has never shied away from its elitism, creating a sense of mystery and allure that has always kept the public inquisitive and thus allowed the industry to thrive. While the majority of fashion houses and labels produce bi-annual ready-to-wear collections in the form of the usual catwalk show, Alexander McQueen never did conform to these standards, instead choosing to make his shows into theatrical experiences by fusing his designs with theatrical performance, making him the perfect subject for cinema. An example of this is McQueen’s Spring/Summer 1999 collection. As one of his relatively simpler collections clothing-wise, it was revolutionary in the way it combined fashion with performance art. In the show’s finale, the raw and eerie setting was juxtaposed by the presence of two mechanical contraptions, between which stood model Shalom Harlow wearing a white strapless dress which was belted at and flared out from the bust. The two machines proceeded to move around aggressively while Harlow stood in the middle, silently writhing and recoiling as if in pain, until the machines suddenly started spraying her with paint and covering the plain white dress with random splatters of black and yellow, leaving a lasting impression on the audience which has gone down in history as one of the most iconic fashion shows to date.

However, perhaps McQueen’s most revered show to date is his Spring/Summer 2001 show, entitled ‘Voss’. This collection fully immersed the audience in McQueen’s mind and involved them in the show itself. The audience were seated around a large mirrored cube, forced to stare at themselves before the show started while listening to the pulse of a heartbeat. As the show began, the cube lit up, revealing the mental hospital-style setting for the show, containing a brown opaque glass cubicle in the centre. Although the audience could see inside the cube, the models could not see out, instead presented with their own reflections as they paraded around. The pinnacle of the show was when supermodel Erin O’Connor emerged in a bright red ostrich feather dress which was both haunting and beautiful. But, just when you thought it couldn't get any stranger, at the end of the show, the walls of the cubicle fell down to reveal fetish writer, Michelle Olley, lying naked across a chaise longue while attached to a breathing tube. Oh, and covered in moths. Obviously.

These are just a couple of examples from McQueen’s extensive body of work which prove that fashion and film go hand in hand, pairing the fantastical nature and aestheticism of fashion with that which is often present in and essential to cinematography. The McQueen biopic, however, will focus on his ‘Plato’s Atlantis’ collection. This show featured two giant robotic cameras which ran along beams, following the models up and down the catwalk while a video played on the screen in the background of model Raquel Zimmermann lying naked on sand with snakes slithering over her body. Models wore oversized heeled platform boots akin to armadillo shells and dresses were short, yet structurally and architecturally fascinating. McQueen combined digital printing with vivid colours, using bold animal prints, from butterflies to giraffes to transform his models into extraterrestrial beings which in turn thrusted the audience into McQueen’s imaginary world.

The upcoming film will follow the creative process behind and build-up to this show, in which McQueen reworked previous collections into something entirely new, cementing his iconic status in the industry. He dedicated the collection to his mother, shortly after whose death McQueen tragically took his own life in 2010. Whether you are interested in fashion, film or art, we can be assured that the McQueen biopic is certainly not an experience to be missed.