savage beauty, a retrospective of alexander mcqueen's work will kick off the annual met ball on may 2.the catalogue of the exhibit was recently released and an interview with mcqueen's successor, sarah burton by tim blanks is included.burton tells blanks that when mcqueen first got the call from LVHM to go to givenchy, he thought they were calling him to do a handbag collaboration with louis vuitton (the hot thing at the time). she recalls, "we had one pattern-cutting table, which used to belong to body map & flyte ostell, with chairs that didn't reach the table. when lee got the givenchy job, we got chairs that reached the table and he was really excited because it meant there was money coming in, and he could do things he'd never done before."quotes from mcqueen about each collection are included....one of my favorites:i'm an avid follower of the news, and sometimes you just can't take any more war, any more disasters, and you just want to remind yourself there's beauty in the world. [with the collection] i wanted to show a more poetic side to my work. it was all about....a feeling of sadness, but in a cinematic kind of way. i find beauty in melancholy." (this is in regards to the last photograph above) i think i love this statement so much because part of me fears that i can so relate to it....