From Alexander McQueen’s 1992 MA graduate collection to his unfinished AW10 collection, the 'Savage Beauty' exhibition opening this weekend gives back all the dramatic staging and spectacle fans of McQueen are used to - skulls and carved wooden prosthetics included. 'Savage Beauty' was first shown at the New York Metropolitan Museum in 2011. Now set for London, the show has been extended and upgraded, with plans to fill three conjoining areas of the V&A Museum. V&A curator, Claire Wilcox aimed to capture McQueen’s fashion moment without differing, down to the finer details."The craft, the spectacle, multi-layered references, the theatricality - and the assessment of a fashion designer's life's work," Wilcox told Suzy Menkes, in an interview for V&A Magazine. To best retell the McQueen design story, the V&A has divided each section of its 'Savage Beauty' exhibition into ten sections: ‘London’, ‘A Romantic Mind’, ‘A Gothic Mind’, ‘Cabinet of Curiosity’, ‘Romantic Primitivism’, ‘Romantic Nationalism’, ‘Romantic Exoticism’, ‘Voss’, ‘Romantic Naturalism’, and ‘Plato’s Atlantis’. For Wilcox, it was important to literally take the fabrics, threads and props from McQueen’s shows and key collections and let people experience him, as creator. The ‘Cabinet of Curiosity' contains all kinds of eccentric things key to understanding the designer: textiles, metal, leather, glass, feathers, porcupine spines - all coming together to outwork McQueen’s design fetishes. The Butterfly headdress with hand-painted turkey feathers is a key piece, made in collaboration with milliner, Phillip Treacy. It shows McQueen's bravery with using raw animal materials and his passion for nature. At ‘Romantic Naturalism’, this most enduring influence upon McQueen – nature – is fully explored. McQueen took tulle and lace to make a dress with veil and antlers for his ‘Widows of Culloden’ collection back in 2006, which featured Kate Moss. Meanwhile, a dress from ‘Sarabande’ mixed both silk and real flowers onto gowns, which withered as they fell onto the catwalk. In the collection 'What a Merry Go Round', a fox skeleton was draped around the shoulders of an elegant silk and wool dress. “It seems to be to do with a sense of animal characteristics bursting out, as if he couldn’t contain that animal nature. It’s disturbing, even frightening,” Wilcox told the Guardian. At the section ‘Voss’, a dress created entirely from pheasant feathers sits next to clamshell-encrusted dress from the same-name ‘Voss’ collection of 2001. Then, there are a number of ‘Romantic Exoticized’ garments, including a coat and a dress appliquéd with roundels in the shape of chrysanthemums. ‘Romantic Nationalism’ outplays McQueen’s patriotism to Britain in his work and to his Scottish heritage. His ‘Widows of Culloden’ collection, which was based on the final battle of the Jacobite Risings in 1745, saw the bird’s nest headdress with Swarovski gemstones and real plumed wings soar down the runway in ’06. McQueen was a bird expert and for back-up, would refer to National Geopraphic magazine to visually reconstruct each wing by hand.“If he was referencing a bird, he wanted to reproduce the exact feather pattern, he wanted it to be completely authentic,” Sarah Burton, creative director for Alexander McQueen, told the Guardian.One of the defining features of McQueen’s collections was their nostalgic pain, drawing especially on the Victorian Gothic. Somewhat Edgar Allen Poe-esque, ‘A Gothic Mind’ shows McQueen’s recreation of unity through paradox such as life and death, lightness and darkness, melancholy and beauty. The black duck feather dress from ‘The Horn of Plenty’ collection best portrays these elements of horror and romance working brilliantly into anti-human creations. Under the banner of ‘A Romantic Mind’, McQueen’s cutting and construction is celebrated. He was a pioneer of femininity and romanticism and highly prized the use of the imagination. And he defied the rules of design and artistic expression of his time, much like his Romanticism predecessors. For ‘Plato’s Atlantis’, named after McQueen’s last collection before his death in 2010, there is an implosion of technical virtuosity. McQueen used print and fabric to tell of the devolution of humankind. A snakeskin pattern was developed using actual scales to create 3-D reptilian shapes, gleaming like steel on the shiny silk. Digitally engineered sea creature prints, and towering Armadillo boots created a futurism with female form. It was an snapshot of what was to come from McQueen as the Naughties fiercely ramped up its dependency on technology in the digital age. Savage Beauty exposes the sadness that drove McQueen’s creativity. But also his joie de vivre that those, closest to him, experienced when in his presence. McQueen crafted pieces that touched the lives of many; those who were moved by his acceptance of death and destruction and his appreciation for feminine beauty. McQueen was close to his fashion family and his beloved city: “London’s where I was brought up. It’s where my heart is and where I get my inspiration,” he said, back in 2000.Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the V&A runs from 14 March to 2 August 2015.