Alexander McQueen's unfinished drama

"Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a survey of the career of the British fashion designer who committed suicide last year at 40, is about control and change. The show is ethereal and gross, graceful and utterly manipulative.

Part of its dynamic is oldfashioned shock. In galleries that combine the look of baronial halls and meat lockers, clothes come at you like electrical zaps: a blouse threaded with worms, a coat sprouting horns, shoes that devour feet. A pert little jacket is printed with a crucifixion scene; a corset has a cast-metal animal spine curling out from behind.

And everywhere there are arresting delicacies. The yellow-green beadwork is so fine it looks as soft as moss. Floral-patterned lace has been cut up then partially stitched together again, to give a dress the illusion of having been torn.