‘Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty’ Now The Met’s Best-Attended Fashion Exhibit in History

Last night, “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” officially surpassed the 2008 comic-themed “Superheros: Fashion and Fantasy” show in number of visitors,

McQueen, red and white.

Last night, “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” officially surpassed the 2008 comic-themed “Superheros: Fashion and Fantasy” show in number of visitors, making it the most popular runway-related show in the history of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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The late designer’s buzzed-about collection has attracted 582,000 people since its opening in May, and will continue to rack up the numbers for another week. “Savage Beauty” will close at midnight on August 7 after an unprecedented extension.

The new record is hardly a surprise. The New York Times‘ Eric Wilson wrote a breathless appraisal of the show for yesterday’s paper that treated the exhibit’s attendance record — as well as its impending inclusion in the museum’s all-time top-twenty exhibitions — as an inevitability.

Where did the phenomenal popularity come from? The Times points to Kate Middleton’s wedding dress (designed by Sarah Burton for the line), the designer’s roguish drug-riddled reputation that dogged him during his lifetime, and the grisly details surrounding his suicide.

Those points aside, the success probably stems from the show itself.

“In a museum,” Mr. Wilson writes, “clothes that suggest romanticism, battles between darkness and light, between love and sadness, or even life and death, take on new meaning.”

Now, go see the thing already!

‘Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty’ Now The Met’s Best-Attended Fashion Exhibit in History