A Tribute to Alexander McQueen

Written by Laura Paine //Dirty Water News

Thursday, 25 February 2010 01:40

L ee Alexander McQueen was around the age of three when he drew a dress on the wall in the
council house his family lived in in Stratford, London. A few years later he began making dresses for
his three sisters and announced that he would some day be a fashion designer. Little did he know that
he would become one of the most internationally acclaimed and controversial designers the fashion
industry had ever seen.
His early education took place at Rokeby, a boys comprehensive school, where he drew and read
fashion literature. He left school at the age of 16 with a single-O level but completed his A-Level in Art
at West Hampton Technical College in night-school before he began the apprenticeship at Savile Row
tailors Anderson and Shepherd where his clientèle included Mikhail Gorbachev and Prince Charles. It
was because of this apprenticeship that he earned the reputation as an expert in creating a flawless,
tailored look.
After his time with Savile Row, he moved on to work with Angels & Bermans, crafting costumes for
productions like Les Miserables while he focused on mastering pattern cutting. He then worked for
London-based designer Koji Tatsuno, who was backed by Yohji Yamamoto, before he moved to Milan
to work with his idol, Romeo Gigli in the late 1980s.
After Gigli’s split with friend and business partners Donato Maiano and Carla Sozzani, McQueen
returned to London, where he tried to acquire a job teaching pattern-cutting at Central Saint Martins
College of Art & Design. He was offered a place in the course instead of the job, and completed his
MA in 1992.
His entire graduate collection was purchased by influential stylist Isabella Blow, who would then
become his muse, friend and pseudo public relations agent. It is said that Blow convinced McQueen to
be known as Alexander when he began launching his fashion career.
He established his own label with a small collection which was presented at the Bluebird Garage in
Chelsea and is where his signature “bumster” trousers were first shown. These jeans were the
beginning of the low-rise denim trend and was “what defined McQueen” for Blow PR director Michael
Oliveira-Salac.
In 1995, McQueen’s autumn/winter catwalk show was the cause of much commotion, which is not
surprising considering its name was Entitled Highland Rape and featured models who appeared to be
battered and otherwise disheveled in his torn frocks. This show was the designer’s personal
commentary on the misgivings and bad habits of the British but was misinterpreted as being perverse,
misogynistic and a celebration of the violation of women. His 1997 spring/summer collection, La
Poupee, featured a black model who had a metal cage attached to her limbs, which was inspired by
puppet master Hans Bellmer, and was meant to give the feel of a marionette; it was misconstrued as
being an ode to bondage, slavery and the subordination of women by some of the press.
At the age of 27 with only eight collections, McQueen became the Designer-in-chief at Givenchy in
Paris, succeeding John Galliano who went to work for Christian Dior. His first Haute Couture
collection was considered a failure and he himself admitted that it was far from his best work. In 1998
he produced a show in autumn featuring car-robots spraying paint over white cotton dresses and model
Aimee Mullins, a double amputee, walking down the runway on intricately carved wooden legs. He
stayed at Givenchy until the end of his contract in 2001. At this time he developed Alexander McQueen
and McQ labels selling a 51% share of his label to Gucci Group.
McQueen has flagship stores in New York, Milan, London, Las Vegas and LA. His work can be seen
on celebrities like Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Bjork, for whom he designed the cover for her 1997
Homogenic. Many of his pieces are seen throughout Lady Gaga’s music videos.
McQueen was one of the youngest designers to be named “British Designer of the Year,” which he won
four times between 1996-2003, and he was awarded CBE and International Designer of the Year at the
Council of Fashion Designer Awards. He is well known for creating the skull-scarves that flew off the
shelves and around the necks of celebrities and civilians alike, and was the first designer to participate
in MAC’s promotion of cosmetic releases that were created by fashion designers.
In McQueen’s personal life, he was openly gay and claimed to have known about his sexuality at the
age of six, although he came out to his family at 18. He was unofficially married to documentary
filmmaker George Forsyth, and though the marriage only lasted one year, they formed a close
friendship. He was an accomplished scuba diver, which was inspiration for many of his pieces, as seen
in his October 2009 show, “Plato’s Atlantis.”
Though it is still unclear why McQueen took his own life, it is certain that the man and the fascinating
career he created will be remembered in the fashion world and held in the hearts of his friends and
admirers for decades to come.