McQueen at work backstage, 2001. “I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.” -Lee Alexander McQueen. (Photo by Anne Deniau.)
If you dug deep enough into any fashion lover’s past you would probably find the one designer that started them on the path to total fashion addiction. Maybe they don’t even realize who it is right away, but if you ask me, I can give a definitive answer almost immediately- Alexander McQueen.
I didn’t always stay up to ungodly hours in the morning clicking through runway show after runway show, saving my favorite looks for inspiration. I also didn’t always voraciously tear through any fashion magazine I could get, looking for material to create elaborate collages to memorialize my favorite trends, models, brands, and editorial photo shoots. I didn’t always construct elaborate fantasies and compelling characters from the simple combination of garments.
I used to just be in love with the idea of clothes and putting them together in ways that made me look good, but everything changed when I discovered McQueen. I started to love the idea of clothing and fashion as an art form, the idea that entire stories can be weaved into every fiber of a piece of clothing. Because of McQueen, the entire world of fashion opened up to me and my mere interest in looking good for school transformed into what I want to spend my life doing.
McQueen made clothing for the sake of art. “Things rot. . . . I used flowers because they die. My mood was darkly romantic at the time.” -McQueen for Harper’s Bazaar, 2007. (GIF Source: dailydot.com)
In my honest and obviously biased opinion, Alexander McQueen is one of the greatest designers of this generation because he went beyond the purpose of fashion, to sell clothing, and made his shows into art exhibitions and works of living, breathing poetry.
As Jaden Trahan, my boyfriend and also an avid fan of McQueen, states, “Alexander McQueen was never like ‘I’m going to sell so many of these dresses made entirely of flowers.’ No. He wanted to bare his soul in that one dress.”
I think what I’ve always loved the most about McQueen’s clothing and his shows is the fact that they tell stories. Each piece sent down the runway clearly has a character in mind and I can’t help but feel transported into a world of fantasy when viewing everything.
A Gothic, fantastical merry-go-round for McQueen’s autumn/winter 2001 show. He injected theatrical elements into all of his shows. (Photo by Chris Moore.)
“It’s pretty much an objective fact that [McQueen’s] pieces are art,” Jaden said. “His pieces transcend generations and trends. A hundred years from now, people will still think it’s beautiful and that it’s art.”
Jaden and I aren’t the only ones to think that McQueen’s work functioned as art, as many of his works were displayed in an exhibition entitled “Savage Beauty” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 2011.
Of course, being the obsessed fangirl that I am, I HAD to have the book from the exhibition, which Jaden so graciously gifted me. I spent hours flipping through the pages, crying tears of absolute disbelief at how this man transformed fashion from simply the clothes you buy and wear, into masterpieces that held so much meaning. I eagerly showed each image to Jaden, who became an avid McQueen fan overnight.
One of my favorite pieces of McQueen’s work. “It is important to look at death because it is a part of life… It is the end of a cycle—everything has to end. The cycle of life is positive because it gives room for new things.” -McQueen for Drapers magazine, 2010. (Image Source: blog.metmuseum.org , courtesy of Alexander McQueen.)
I was devastated to find out that in 2010, McQueen took his own life. Although he has passed away, his influence and legacy still live on. Sarah Burton, a designer that worked closely with McQueen throughout his career, took on the role of the new head designer and creative director of his line. Throughout the past five years, she has kept the same fantastical romanticism that was present in all of McQueen’s work.
Sarah Burton’s work for Alexander McQueen across various seasons. She has kept McQueen’s sense of fantasy in the brand since his death. (Photos by Marcus Tondo, Gianni Pucci and Monica Feudi, from left to right.)
Lee Alexander McQueen and his surviving brand will always hold a spot in my heart as the catalyst that started me on this incredible journey into a passion that I hope to carry for the rest of my life.
I recommend that anyone and everyone should discover some of his work and truly appreciate it as art and not just clothing to be mass produced and marketed the world over. Clothing isn’t just for the practical purpose of wearing- it can be art that tells a compelling story in a way that no other media could, and it’s important to me to help others learn that- so much that it’s one of the central purposes of this site.
Thank you, McQueen- I don’t know what I would do without your gorgeous creations. Rest easy.
McQueen told a story in each of his collections, this one was inspired by Joan of Arc. (A/W 1998) (GIF Source: the-widows-of-culloden.tumblr.com)
