Alexander McQueen
2007
Products: Versa TUBE
Designer: Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton-Jones

Last week, the fashion industry gathered in Paris to view the upcoming spring/summer collections of the world's foremost designers. As the industry's leading fashion week wrapped up on Sunday night, only two shows were heralded by the press as "alive to the heart-stopping possibilities of fashion. One of them being Alexander McQueen. Last Friday night, in a collection that was a tribute to the late stylist Isabella Blow, McQueen" seemed to almost dare anyone to match him for know-how and imagination." The 9 meter high, 15 meter wide Versa TUBE 'eagle' sculpture inspired by McQueen and Blow's mutual love of ornithology formed the backdrop to a show that exuded pure daring imagination.

The "eagle" was designed by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton-Jones who worked closely with Rob Fowler of Element Lab's London office to realise their concept. It consisted of 281 one meter long HD Versa TUBES and 120 half meter long HD Versa TUBES. The Versa TUBE HD brings an eye-catching LED lighting module that offers enormous flexibility and creativity to a designer's toolbox. By using video signal for control, the Versa TUBE HD delivers countless looks from vibrant patterns to organic flows. A special diffusing lens ensures smooth light output and durability. There's no limit to what can be displayed.

Says Nils Thorjussen of Element Labs: "It is always gratifying to see designers push the creative boundaries with our products. The 'eagle' design the guys produced was awesome, and it shows off the creative capabilities of the product so well."

The Versa TUBES used at the show were supplied by rental company VER. The lighting/video company that took care of the production was HFM Lighting (project manager- Simon Husband). Under the expert guidance of crew chief Ian Henderson, HFM Lighting supplied the programming and took care of individually mapping a structure that contained not a single parallel line. The content shown on the 'eagle' was developed by the legendary Glassworks Film House. Show Production was by Gainsborough and Whiting. Production Designer was Joseph Bennett and construction was supervised by Simon Kenney of Sovereign Design.