Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty at the V&A

Alexander McQueen's retrospective has arrived at the V&A from New York, entitled Savage Beauty.

Alexander McQueen is famous for working closely with Swarovski on his collections. The management team at I-Beads were lucky enough to be offered golden tickets to the private view of Savage Beauty at the V&A. The show is dazzling with it's application and incredible uses of Swarovski crystals. Lee Alexander McQueen had a close relationship with Nadja Swarovski to whom he was introduced by Isabella Blow in the 1990s. Nadja encouraged him to use their amazing crystals in all his work. The show begins with a black and white picture of McQueen, slowly morphing into one of his beautiful golden digital skull prints. It's a poignant beginning, a reminder of his untimely death.

Alexander "Lee" McQueen

The exhibition spans several collections and even touches on McQueen's college work. Throughout the exhibition McQueen's talents as a designer and his unerring eye for detail shine though, along with themes of life and death, nature and drama.

Bell Jar dress in 2010 Getty Images

The sparkle of many hundreds of Swarovski crystals from one particular dress, entitled the Bell Jar dress, lights up the small shiny box it is placed in. It glitters like a beacon among the endless variety of heavily embellished, rich and sometimes disturbing pieces presented as if the viewer were inside a giant, dark chocolate box.

Dress, Sarabande, spring/summer 2007, nude silk embroidered with silk flowers and fresh flowers. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø / Art + Commerce

As we left the darkness and sparkle of the show, one dress in particular stuck in my mind; the beautiful ballgown-silhouetted dress covered with real and silk flowers. The dress is entitled Sarabande, from his 2007 collection. Lee wanted to include real flowers, I read, because they wither and die. What a gigantic and under-appreciated talent he was. If only he was still with us now. We want to go to the Tate exhibition of photographs too.