Designer Alexander McQueen
About a week ago on Thursday, I came back to my room at around 6pm after a long day of classes, during which I had intentionally deprived myself of both internet and my cell in an attempt to focus more on lectures. As I was going through my blog feed to wind down the stress of the hectic day, I was shocked by the words I saw in every single feed.
First came denial; I thought of the news as just another buzz of idle gossip on the web. But then again, the news had spread in the morning and it would have already burst if it was a bubble. I threw a glimpse at the magazine editorial featuring the red-feather-fronted it-dress of fall 2008, a precious inspiration which I put up on my wall at the beginning of the term. And I felt empty as I thought of the creator of that exquisitely sweet dress, and many others. I didn’t want to believe Alexander McQueen was dead.
My suitemate Kento Spanos, who also admires McQueen’s work, had received the news at 8am in the morning unlike me, through an e-mail sent by a friend in Kopenhagen. He said, “I was so shocked that I thought I was still dreaming, I didn’t think it was real.” Apparently, he too thought of it as a gig for the start of the fashion week.
McQueen was found dead at his London apartment on Thursday, February 11. A lot has been said and written since then, about both the designer and his death. For a week, people kept speculating behind and infront of the scenes, whether the eponymous fashion label of the visionary designer would survive or not. Some argued that the McQueen house had not been established well-enough to be able to survive McQueen’s absence, while some others pointed out solid financial data that indicated vigorously rising profit margins.
You may not be very familiar with McQueen's name, but you've probably seen a great number of his designs if you're an avid Lady Gaga fan, including her entire outfit in the music video of "Bad Romance."
The president and CEO of Gucci Group which owns 51% of the stakes in McQueen’s company, Robert Polet announced Thursday morning that the label will live. Quenching the curiosity in the fashion world, he also added that McQueen’s Fall 2010 collection will be shown as planned, during Paris Fashion Week in March.
After quitting high school, McQueen started his career as an apprentice at London’s entrenched tailor and costumiers like Anderson & Sheppard, Gieves & Hawkes, Angels and Bermans. He later on attended the prestigious fashion school Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, where he had actually applied for a job as pattern-cutting tutor (His portfolio was so impressive that he was offered an acceptance to the school’s MA degree instead of the job.) Upon graduation in 1992, he was discovered by legendary editor and fashion icon Isabella Blow, who bought his entire graduation collection. He was soon appointed as the head designer at the French Couture house Givenchy at the age of 33. Hailed as the Best International Designer in 2003 by CFDA, and the Men’s Wear Designer of the Year in 2004 by British Fashion Awards, McQueen was given the British Fashion Awards’ British Designer of the Year Award, not once or twice, but four times. He was also honored by Queen Elizabeth II as a CBE (the Commander rank in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire order of chivalry.)
A Victorian-inspired lace gown with headdress from McQueen's Fall 2007 collection
The entire fashion industry unanimously agrees that McQueen was more than a fashion designer; he embodied a contemporary artistic genius, who kept rebelliously pushing the boundaries of creativity in fashion each new season. Asserting that “fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment,” he was quoted in an interview last year, “I wasn’t born to give you a twin set and pearls.”
And he didn’t. He instead imbued his designs with cryptic skulls and presented daringly extraordinary clothes in every single one of his shows, which were equally as dazzling as his clothes; I had been waiting on the tiptoe of expectation for the first day I’d “experience” one of his shows live. Transcending the runway as ephemeral art works, his shows were virtual incarnations of gripping surrealist dreams, bringing forth a delusional beauty that would grip your mind away to places you have never even thought of.
One of his most controversial shows was the Spring 1999 show for Givenchy, which featured model Shalom Harlow getting spray-painted by robots on the stage. McQueen was quoted,
A sublimely tailored dress from McQueen's Spring 2010 collection "Plato's Atlantis"
“It was my best show, that moment with Shalom!That combination of arts and crafts with technology—that weird unison between man and machine. I remember doing the tests with Katy England before. The insurance was a million pounds that day—a stupid amount! We got the machines from Fiat in Italy, where they’re used for painting cars. And now they’ve ripped it off in a TV commercial, haven’t they? You find a lot of ideas from my shows in adverts now. I find it a compliment.”
At his first runway show after his break up with Givenchy, which was aptly entitled Asylum, McQueen had the audience sit down for an hour before the show in a mirror cube that resembled a mental hospital cell. His Spring 2004 Runway show was presented in a nineteenth-century Parisian dance hall (La Salle Wagram), where he created a choreographed narrative reenactment of 1969 film “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”, featuring dancers along with the models. For his Spring 2005 show “Picnic at Hanging Roc,” he created a chessboard with a whimsical inspiration from “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” and had the models get off the runway through a chess match.
His Spring 2010 show “Plato’s Atlantis” again created a great buzz in the fashion world, with his quite other-worldly designs and dream-like staging. The show was also marked by Lady Gaga’s debut of her single “Bad Romance”; later on Lady Gaga, a McQueen fan, was dressed in clothes from the runway show in the music video of the song.
Red-feathered dress from McQueen's Fall 2008 runway collection, and a Vogue editorial featuring the dress
A part of me still hopes all this is a joke. I couldn’t agree more with the Sartorialist Scott Schumann, who posted on his blog, “There doesn’t seem to be anywhere to turn to make it feel right or understandable.I don’t have any answers for you either. All I know is this sucks.”
McQueen, who was inspirational for everyone, will definitely be missed. I am not only sad for the premature death of a genius, but also feel sorry to be deprived of his fresh and bold future designs, as he had hundreds more stories to tell, and thousands more fashion lovers to inspire. Rest in peace Alexander McQueen.
