Lee Alexander McQueen was born on the 17th of March 1969 at University Hospital Lewisham, the youngest of six children in a working-class family in East London. His father, Ronald, worked as a taxi driver, and his mother, Joyce, was a social science teacher. While later reports suggested he grew up in a council flat, the family actually moved to a terraced house in Stratford during his first year. From the age of three, McQueen displayed an obsession with clothing, drawing a dress on the wall of his family home and later making dresses for his three sisters. He was also a member of the Young Ornithologists Club, a fascination with birds that would later permeate his professional career as a recurring motif in his designs. He left school at the age of 16 with only one O-level in art, but his passion for fashion led him to a tailoring course at Newham College and subsequently a two-year apprenticeship with the prestigious Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard. This early training in traditional tailoring would become the foundation of his reputation, allowing him to create impeccably tailored looks that contrasted sharply with the chaotic themes of his later collections. He later claimed to have sewed obscenities into the lining of suits made for Prince Charles, though an investigation found no evidence of this, yet the story remains a part of his rebellious mythology.
The Hooligan Of English Fashion
In 1992, McQueen presented his graduation collection at Central Saint Martins, titled Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims, which was bought in its entirety by magazine editor Isabella Blow. This collection marked the beginning of a partnership that would define his early career, as Blow used her unique style and contacts to help McQueen gain traction in the fashion world. He adopted the name Alexander McQueen, reportedly to avoid losing his unemployment benefits while still a struggling young designer, and for a time, he lived in the cellar of Blow's house in Belgravia while it was under renovation. His first professional runway show, the Spring/Summer 1994 Nihilism collection, was held at the Bluebird Garage in Chelsea and featured models looking bruised and bloodied in see-through clothes and extremely low-cut bumster trousers. This collection earned him the moniker enfant terrible and the title the hooligan of English fashion, with journalist Marion Hume describing it as theatre of cruelty. The bumster, an extreme low-rise trouser, became a signature piece that he returned to again and again, spawning a trend in low-rise jeans after Madonna wore a pair in an MTV advert in 1994. By 1995, his work positioned him as an artist in the eyes of the public, communicating profoundly personal and provocative themes through his collections, a stark contrast to the minimalist aesthetic prevalent at the time.
The 1995 Autumn/Winter collection Highland Rape properly made McQueen's name, though it also brought intense criticism. Inspired by Scottish history, particularly the Highland Clearances of the late 18th and 19th centuries, the styling was violent and aggressive, with many showpieces slashed, torn, or spattered with bleach and fake blood. Reviewers interpreted it as being about women who were raped and criticized what they saw as misogyny and the glamorisation of rape. McQueen denied this, arguing that it referred to England's rape of Scotland and was intended to counter other designers' romantic depiction of Scottish culture. He said he aimed to empower women and for people to be afraid of the women he dressed, linking his use of style as a protective barrier to his experience of witnessing violence against women in his family. Following this, he staged his own show entitled It's a Jungle Out There, which was inspired by nature and a response to the criticism he received. The title was a response to the criticism he received; according to McQueen, after he watched a nature documentary about gazelles being hunted by lions, he said, That's me! Someone's chasing me all the time, and, if I'm caught, they'll pull me down. Fashion is a jungle full of nasty, bitchy hyenas. Models wore eye make-up to resemble gazelles and clothes with horns in the show. This collection, presented at London's Borough Market, was judged a triumph and restored his reputation, with Amy Spindler of The New York Times writing that McQueen was fashion's closest thing to a rock star.
The Givenchy Years
In 1996, McQueen was appointed head designer of Givenchy to succeed John Galliano, who had moved to Dior. Hubert de Givenchy, the founder of the label known for its elegant couture, criticized McQueen's appointment, describing it as a total disaster. In turn, upon his arrival at Givenchy, McQueen insulted the founder by calling him irrelevant. His debut show for Givenchy, Spring/Summer 1997, featured Greek mythology-inspired gold and white designs and was considered a failure by some critics in contrast to the praise lavished on John Galliano's debut collection for Dior. McQueen himself said to Vogue in October 1997 that the collection was crap. He had toned down his designs at Givenchy, although he continued to indulge his rebellious streak. His relationship with Givenchy was fraught, and he left in March 2001 after his contract ended, with McQueen arguing that Givenchy had started to constrain his creativity. Before his contract with Givenchy had finished, McQueen signed a deal with Givenchy's rival Gucci in 2000, daring Givenchy to fire him. Gucci bought 51% of McQueen's company with McQueen remaining its creative director, and the deal allowed McQueen to expand his own Alexander McQueen label. In the following years, a number of Alexander McQueen boutiques opened in cities around the world, and the label also extended into perfume, eyewear and accessories, trainers, as well as a menswear line.
Theatrical Runways
McQueen's runway shows were noted for their drama and theatricality, often ending with elements of performance art. His Spring/Summer 1999 collection No. 13 was held in a warehouse in London on the 27th of September 1998 and received widespread media attention. The show featured double amputee Aimee Mullins in a pair of prosthetic legs intricately hand-carved in ash. The finale of the show, however, provided a counter-point to the anti-industrial ethic of the Arts and Crafts movement. It featured Shalom Harlow in a white dress spray-painted in yellow and black by two robotic arms from a car manufacturing plant. It is considered one of the most memorable finales in fashion history. His Spring/Summer 2001 collection, named Voss, was one of his most celebrated and dramatic catwalk shows. The centerpiece tableau that dominated the show was an enormous dark glass box within a larger glass box. Inside the inner dark glass case was an interior filled with moths and, at the center, a naked model on a chaise longue with her face obscured by a gas mask. The tableau was revealed when the glass walls of the inner box fell away towards the end of the show and smashed onto the ground. McQueen said that the tableau was based on the Joel Peter Witkin image Sanitarium. The show was designed with padded walls typical of psychiatric facilities. The model chosen by McQueen to be the center of the show was the British writer Michelle Olley. Models were styled with bandaged heads. The British fashion photographer Nick Knight said of the VOSS show on his SHOWstudio.com blog: It was probably one of the best pieces of Fashion Theatre I have ever witnessed.
Evolution And The Sea
Alexander McQueen's last appearance on a fashion show was in Plato's Atlantis, presented during Paris Fashion Week on the 6th of October 2009. This Spring/Summer 2010 collection was inspired by nature and the post-human manifesto featuring 46 full looks depicted with sea creature and reptile prints. McQueen installed two large cameras on the runway, both of which moved back and forth, documenting and broadcasting the entire show live on SHOWstudio. Plato's Atlantis was the first fashion show by any designer to be streamed live over the internet, although the website streaming it crashed after Lady Gaga tweeted about the show before it started. The show began with a video of Raquel Zimmermann lying naked on sand with snakes on her body. The fashion show and the collection addresses Charles Darwin's theory of evolution as well as current global warming issues. The fantasy collection, named after Plato's island that sank into the sea, envisaged a future where humans are forced to evolve from living on land to living in water in order to survive. The color scheme changed during the show from green and brown to blue and aqua. The models exhibited an androgynous look, as well as possessing post-human characteristics. The prints shifted from reptilian to prints of water creatures such as jellyfish and stingrays. The collection's final silhouettes gave the models marine features while the McQueen's signature armadillo shoe also transformed the appearance of the models' anatomic foot. Plato's Atlantis was yet another way in which McQueen fused fashion with technology. The finale of the show was accompanied by the debut of Lady Gaga's single Bad Romance.
The Final Collection
At the time of Alexander McQueen's death, he had 16 pieces for his Autumn/Winter collection that were 80% finished. These outfits were completed by his design team, and shown in seven presentations to small, specially invited groups. This collection, unofficially titled Angels and Demons, was first shown during Paris Fashion Week on the 8th of March 2010, to a select handful of fashion editors in a mirrored, gilded salon at the 18th-century Hôtel de Clermont-Tonnerre. Some fashion editors said the show was hard to watch because it showed how McQueen was obsessed with the afterlife. The clothes presented had a medieval and religious look. Basic colors that were repetitively used were red, gold, and silver with detailed embroidery. The last outfit presented had a coat made of gold feathers. His models were accessorized to show his love for theatrical imagery. Each piece is unique, as was he, McQueen's fashion house said in a statement that was released with the collection. After company owner Gucci confirmed that the brand would continue, McQueen's long-time assistant Sarah Burton was named as the new creative director of Alexander McQueen in May 2010. In September 2010, Burton presented her first womenswear collection in Paris. The collection represented the culmination of McQueen's career, blending his signature theatricality with a sense of finality and reflection on the themes of life and death that had permeated his work.
The Tragic End
On the morning of the 11th of February 2010, McQueen's housekeeper found that he had hanged himself at his home in Green Street, London. Paramedics were called and they pronounced him dead at the scene. He was 40 years old. Annabelle Neilson was the last person to see McQueen alive, having left his home at 3:00 a.m. The coroner, Paul Knapman, reported finding a significant level of cocaine, sleeping pills, and tranquillisers in the blood samples taken after the designer's death. The Westminster Coroner's Court officially recorded his death as a suicide on the 28th of April 2010. McQueen's friend David LaChapelle said that at the time of his death, he was doing a lot of drugs and was very unhappy. McQueen's mother had died eight days before he killed himself. McQueen's funeral took place on the 25th of February 2010 at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, West London. His ashes were later scattered in Skye at Kilmuir, as his Skye ancestry had been a strong influence in his life and work. A memorial was held for McQueen at St. Paul's Cathedral on the 20th of September 2010. It was attended by 2,500 invited guests, including Björk, Kate Moss, Sarah Jessica Parker, Naomi Campbell, Stella McCartney, Daphne Guinness, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Anna Wintour. Björk, a close friend of McQueen's, performed a version of Gloomy Sunday while dressed in a gown he had designed. A week after his death, Gucci Group announced that the Alexander McQueen business would carry on without its founder and creative director. The BBC reported that McQueen had reserved £50,000 of his wealth for his pet dogs so they could live in luxury for the rest of their lives. He also bequeathed £100,000 each to four charities; these include the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in South London, and the Blue Cross animal welfare charity in Burford, Oxfordshire.