In ‘Working Process’ photographer Nick Waplington gives a rare look behind the scenes of Alexander McQueen’s last collection.

Selected from the previously published book project ‘Working Process’, Waplington’s photographs capture the creative journey of McQueen’s final Autumn/Winter collection ‘Horn of Plenty’ in 2009, one of the most celebrated fashion collections in recent history.

The major exhibition at Tate Britain reveals McQueen’s working practice through a selection of hundred large-scale prints completed by Waplington and McQueen three months before the designer’s suicide.

For over six months Waplington followed McQueen and his team from the designer’s studio in Clerkenwell to the final catwalk show in Paris, documenting every step of the creation of ‘The Horn of Plenty! (Everything But the Kitchen Sink)’, taking on recycling as a guiding theme.

McQueen conceived ‘The Horn of Plenty’ collection as an iconoclastic retrospective of his career in fashion, reusing silhouettes and fabrics from his earlier collections and creating a catwalk set out of broken mirrors.

‘Working Process’ reveals a raw and unpolished side of the fashion world. Waplington juxtaposes candid images of McQueen’s creative process with close-up shots of landfill sites and recycling plants, featuring beer bottles, plastic bags and piles of newspapers.

The exhibition, as the photobook, resulting from this unique artistic collaboration creates a powerful commentary on destruction and creative renewal – themes at the heart of the ‘Horn of Plenty’ collection.

Nick Waplington/ Alexander McQueen: Working Process at Tate Britain until 17 May 2015

Miriam is the Deputy Editor of LPD.

Guy Bourdin: Image Maker sheds new light on the infamous French fashion photographer Guy Bourdin. The protégé of Man Ray, Bourdin was deeply inspired by surrealism. He transformed photography in the 1970s and gained significant notoriety for his work with fashion magazine Vogue.

This exhibition invites the viewer to appreciate the artist’s process: to see original film footage, sketches, unpublished photographs and polaroids; the hidden Bourdin is revealed while the viewer is taken on a trip through his filmic, sexy, wild and powerfully suggestive images.

The exhibition begins in Britain, tracing the famous trip Bourdin took with his family across the country in a black Cadillac with a pair of mannequin legs and a suitcase full of shoes. Here he places the mannequin legs against the backdrops of Britain: train station, bus stops, fields, poolsides, crossing a cobblestone street, awaiting a black cab. These photographs in particular ignite the imagination, teetering off balance, suggesting movement. Bourdin invites the viewer to conjure a narrative around the image – and so, we are all the image-makers and photographers in his world.

Several rooms reveal unpublished photographs, alongside famous Vogue spreads and a film is projected on a Super 8 camera giving the viewer some insight into his process

Bourdin always searched for a location upon which to place his models, enhancing his worlds through various techniques to create filmic worlds that are imbued with narrative; models are hidden, only legs or lips or hands revealed.

Coleen is a Canadian writer and theatre director with a thirst to explore the world. She trained at École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, where she mentored with French playwright, Michel Azama. She is currently developing a new play through the Arcola Theatre Writers’ Programme.