When “Savage Beauty,” a retrospective of the late designer Alexander McQueen’s work, appeared at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011, it drew sellout crowds. Yet few realized the largest private collection of his work resides in St. Louis. It forms the core of “A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes, Fashion and Chess,” running October 19 through April 18 at the World Chess Hall of Fame (4652 Maryland, 314-367-9243, worldchesshof.org).
Director Susan Barrett says the initial concept of the exhibit was to re-create McQueen’s spring/summer 2005 show “It’s Only a Game,” where models appeared on a chessboard instead of a runway. Then, with help from Sofia Hedman, the Met’s London archivist for “Savage Beauty,” and assistant curator Kelly Peck, the exhibit evolved, with a broader range of designers (from established labels to experimental designers) and a refined concept. The resulting two-floor show explores the archetype of the queen in nine guises: sage, mother, magician, enchantress, explorer, ruler, Mother Earth, heroine, and orphan. The clothing is presented in environments—almost fairy-tale stage sets—that tell the story of each archetype. “Each chess piece is someone,” Barrett says. “It has a personality and a specific role. We’re all of those pieces.”
“A Queen Within” kicks off October 18 with The Queen’s Gala at Saks Fifth Avenue. An exhibit of photographer Anne Deniau’s prints titled “Of the Mind,” featuring images from her book Love Looks Not With the Eyes: Thirteen Years With Lee Alexander McQueen, opens at Philip Slein Gallery on the prior Wednesday. And on October 19, Washington University will host a fashion panel featuring Hedman and Decades boutique co-owner Cameron Silver.
We chatted with Barrett about the evolution of the show, as well as the ultimate driving mission behind it—to bring girls to the game of chess.
Can you talk about your role in “A Queen Within,” and how the show took shape?
In order to talk about that, I need to go back a little bit—my role in the whole chess world, I guess, was because of my interest in art. I am still Rex Sinquefeld’s art consultant. So, it was through art that we were introduced to the chess world. He wanted to get back into tournament playing when he moved back to St. Louis. Through the artist Bill Smith, he introduced us to some local players, including Bill’s uncle, who is a chess master. I think because of that introduction I was cast with opening a chess club. And so that was something I’d never done before, and didn’t want to do. So, I got that open, but kind of approached it through the design aspect. I started thinking, “OK, how would I as a designer, as an artist, how would I understand chess, or want to come to this place?” So, then fast-forward about a year or two, and the chess club’s doing great. It’s become one of the largest chess clubs in the country. The World Chess Hall of Fame was originally in New York, and then was later in Miami. That has been around for about 25 years.
So, they wanted to move to St. Louis because of the success of the chess club. Chess was everywhere in St. Louis. So, then I was cast with that, which was great. But I wanted to expand upon what the World Chess Hall of Fame was, so that it wasn’t just for chess players, but that we could start to bring in a different perspective for people who didn’t come in to play chess…I wanted to incorporate art and culture and music, all the aspects that you wouldn’t normally think of in terms of chess, and with people who are associated with chess, or who play chess. You wouldn’t think oh, they’re artists, or they’re designers—that’s who I wanted to appeal to. Me included. Many of us grew up thinking I’m either this, or that. I wanted to stretch that and show, instead of the differences, the sameness between chess and art. So we have shows that are art-related, music-related, culturally related. We’ve had all those, in really fashion another way of pulling in a new audience, but also expressing that creativity in chess. It wasn’t unusual to use fashion, because that’s just another aspect of how we can tell the story through chess.
I also knew about Alexander McQueen’s 2005 runway show, and that was based on a game of chess. What he did, instead of having a traditional runway show, his he mocked a stage that was a chessboard, and the models were the chess pieces. And that’s how he showed his collection. And I just thought that was phenomenal. So my original thought was how can we recreate that, or bring that to the Hall of Fame? That was the start of the show. The more I started talking about it with Kelly Peck, who is the assistant curator, the more we were seeing that there was a lot more to it than just recreating a runway show. We started thinking in terms of what does chess and fashion have in common? There are a lot of things, actually. Each chess piece is someone, right? It has a personality, and it has a specific role. And we are all of those pieces. Some days you feel like a pawn, and some days you feel like the queen. And really that is the same in dressing, too; some days you’re feeling like THE queen, and some days you’re just like schlepping around in a t-shirt and jeans, and hiding under the radar screen. It’s also about how you project yourself.
So that’s one thing. The other thing, the whole notion of archetypes, in that the chess pieces, it’s really the same question that fashion designers ask. They ask who are they dressing? Who are they creating for? And they each have a person, or an ideal, in mind. We found that interesting when we started to play with these notions of creativity, who are designers designing for, and when you buy something, you are projecting your own vision of who you are, or who you will be when you put these clothes on. And where will you be going, and what will you be doing with that? And that’s not really unlike identifying with pieces on a chessboard.
And Sofia Hedman, who joined the curators’ team a little later, has a background in Jungian psychology, correct?
She does. Sofia is a phenomenal, gifted woman. She has a background in Jungian psychology. She also is a designer, and is now a fashion curator. So we found Sofia through a couple of different connections—and all roads kind of lead to Sofia. She was involved in “Savage Beauty,” the Alexander McQueen Show, so she knew McQueen’s work very well. When we originally approached her, we were still thinking of limiting the show to only McQueen works. And we had, through some collectors, amassed quite a large collection of McQueen garments, specifically for the show. We were thinking that would be the impetus for the show, or that would be the show. In talking to Sofia, she really expanded up on it. She developed the archetypes of the queen. We decided to just focus on the queen because it was getting really large and there were so many different ideas. We could have had three or four shows, easily, based on this concept. So to narrow it down, we said, let’s focus on the queen, and what her role is. So she took the Jungian archetypes, nine of them. And the reason why she chose nine is in a chess game, you can ideally get nine queens, because pawns and other pieces, if you reach the other side of the board, you can change your piece into whatever you want.
I’d totally forgotten you could do that. You can see how often I play chess!
Well, it’s a rare thing to do, to get there, but ideally in a perfect world, you can have nine queens. So we thought that was a good way to pull in the understanding of the queen and archetypes. And then she chose a different archetype per queen, for each of the nine potential queens. So we have the sage, the mother figure, a magician, the enchantress, the explorer, the ruler, Mother Earth, the orphan, and the heroine. What’s interesting is that each of these pieces, again, are all aspects of everyone. Not everyone. And not even just women. Because sometimes you feel like an orphan. Or a heroine. It just depends on what day it is…and I guess what you’re wearing! [Laughs.]
And her crew is building all these marvelous little environments to stage the clothing in, too, right? Almost like theater sets?
Yes, she has them take in each of the personas, and developed almost like a little mini-gallery for each one. So she’s broken down our gallery spaces into nine different areas. And each area will focus on what that persona is, and that will be through the whole environment…it’s going to be really nine shows within this one show.
You guys had this amazing event in New York, in June. What happened, how did it go?
Well, one thing that became obvious early on is that the show, this idea, and this idea kept growing and growing. All the stars were lining up. The first thing was, a year ago, we realized there was a book that was coming out, and the book was Alexander McQueen’s personal photographer. And that she had published a book that was behind the scenes. And so we contacted her, and she was really interested in participating in our exhibit. And she had not had done a book signing in the United States. So we’ll be the first location for that. It’s already premiered in London, and Berlin, and Paris—and now St. Louis. When we contacted her, all of a sudden there was this whole other world that was being explored, and was being developed in terms of oh my gosh, I can’t believe this is happening. That happened when we found Sofia, because all of a sudden, we were going from this exhibit to having this international, renowned curator curating this show. So we knew that it was bigger than anything we’d done before, and it was a way to present ourselves in terms of people who don’t know that we’re here, and who don’t know what we’re about. So we hired a PR firm in New York, and we had a press release in New York. And it was really important to have a New York presence, because of the fashion world. We wanted to announce ourselves, and it was beyond our expectations in terms of what happened, and the welcome, and the excitement. We hoped to get about 100 or 150 people. And there were over 450 people. And there were still people climbing in that night. It was amazing. Christie’s sponsored that, they hosted it there. And it really, really was sort of a who’s who of the fashion world. It was quite exciting, and really fun.
It’s almost like the show wanted to happen, and there is this energy operating almost independently…not to say it hasn’t been a lot of really hard work for you guys! But it’s interesting how serendipitously it all fell into place.
It really is; I keep thinking that the stars really have aligned, because there was this energy, and there was this camaraderie. We were not expecting a lot of people to come, but we felt it was important to have a presence in New York. We had 25 to 35 people from St. Louis fly to New York for this opening, which was amazing, to get the hometown support. Even Kitty Ratcliffe came. It was just like, OK! Let’s root for the home team. But when we were there, what was so fascinating, the New Yorkers, what you think of as jaded fashionable New Yorkers, were pretty blown away. And we would see some people who’d be like, “Oh my God! Did you see that?! How did you get her here, how did he get here?” And so it really was this surprising who’s who, even for the New Yorkers.
And I guess a lot of what they were excited about were these avant-garde European designers that have never shown in the U.S.?
Exactly. It’s kind of this mish-mash of very renowned designers, and some Houses including Gucci and Victor & Rolf, but there are also these really young up and coming European designers. And they will be shown for the first time, not only in the U.S., but the first time. So we will be bringing in some of the designers to also have trunk shows throughout this exhibit. I think it will be such a great experience for St. Louis to have this opportunity to be the first ones to view not only these works, but to be able to purchase this, too.
There’s also a roundtable happening that opening weekend, too, if I remember right.
We will be having a panel discussion as well. There are a lot of events going on. So we have a roundtable panel discussion at Wash. U., on Saturday; there’s a book signing at Sak’s on Saturday; Friday is the gala, and that’s at Sak’s, who is one of our sponsors. Thursday night we have a VIP dinner at the Hall of Fame, sort of a limited-viewing for some of the people who will be coming in from out of town and for the sponsors. Then we have Philip Slein Gallery, who is going to be having an exhibit of Anne Deniau, who is the photographer for the book. They’re going to be having the show at the Philip Slein Gallery, so you will also be able to purchase these prints. Again, this will be the first time in the U.S. that you can purchase any of these prints. And they will later, in about six months or so, Phil has a limited exclusivity to this, but after six months they will also be sold in L.A. and in New York. So it really is a coup on so many different levels for St. Louis to get the first shot at this. It’s very exciting; it’s exciting for us and it’s also exciting for the art world and the fashion world to keep looking at us, and saying wow, OK, didn’t know this was going on.
This year, just in general, seems to have been a big one for St. Louis…
It’s been a huge, huge year. And it hasn’t been a moment too soon, really. Not only that, it’s a big art year, and a big fashion year. The Dada Ball at CAM had a fashion focus; the Sheldon Art Galleries is going to have a fashion exhibit. Fashion Lab is always doing really creative things, and they’re having a fashion film series. But I think that there’s also this camaraderie in St. Louis among all the art industries, and the art venues. That’s why, I think, there’s been this explosion, because we’ve always played well together. And that’s one thing that you don’t find in other cities. You don’t find people sharing their press, or sharing their contacts, or sharing the limelight. I think in St. Louis, we do. It’s understood that if it’s good for one organization, it’s going to be good for every organization. And I think this year is an example of that. It’s an example of how, through teamwork and this collective energy, we’re all supporting each other. And look at how great it is—it is just an amazing year for us. It’s not just the art venues that are taking notice. The city’s taking notice. The CVC is taking notice. RAC has been pushing this for a long time, but I think it has finally hit this critical mass.
What else is important to call out about this show?
There’s a couple of things. In going back to the awesomeness of St. Louis, there’s a private McQueen collection that we helped amass, and it is the largest private McQueen collection in the world. It is here in St. Louis. The other thing is that, going back to our mission; we are trying to promote chess because of the benefits of chess. And so what we are focusing on for this show is to bring more girls to the game. Girls start out playing it at about the same rate as boys. But then they drop it. There’s a lot of reasons for that. One of my theories is that we don’t want to be mean; we want to be liked. We’re not taught how to compete. So we’re not getting the benefits of healthy competition—being able to raise your hand in classes, or later ask for a raise, or demand the better position. Maybe part of that could be taught just in learning how to play a game that is associated with aggressiveness, and with intelligence. And to go ahead and win, and win gracefully, instead of focusing on what other people are going to think. That’s one of the things we’re really pushing for in this exhibit—we are very dedicated to trying to pull more girls into the game. So that to me is what the most exciting thing. We are working with a woman grand master, Jennifer Shahadi, and she is helping us develop a series of programs for girls in chess throughout the exhibit. One of the things will be that we’re having some sort of chess event on Wednesday before the opening, and it’ll be geared towards girls who are in school. And they will be the first ones to view the exhibit. We really wanted to focus on, who is this for? It’s for everyone, but we really wanted to keep a very strict understanding that we are here for these girls, and this is our future, and they are the future of chess. We’re focused on what that could do to change the whole game, as well as their own lives and their own self-esteem, and their ability to compete. I mean, it’s great to have this exhibit, but we’re really excited about the possibilities with these young women.
