It was with a huge amount of sadness that I read about the death of designer Alexander McQueen last week.
The British designer was one of my early favourites in the high-falutin’ world of fashion. Amongst the pish-posh flaky fashion queens, McQueen redefined regal -and he knew it. Working-class royalty wrapped in bad boy drawl, he dared to try new things, while really, truly, “keeping it real.” To paraphrase playwright Joe Orton, he “came from the gutter, and don’t you forget it.” His work wasn’t merely ephemeral; it was probing, challenging, and frequently bizarre. Live presentations were deeply theatrical, taking inspiration from popular entertainment and relevant social issues (yes, fashion and social isues can mix) and fusing these ideas with a Biennale-esque sensibility that sought to blow open the doors of what fashion was and what it could be. He never lost touch with his roots, nor with his family. His deep connection with the women in his life -the twin muses of Isabella Blow and his mother -was apparent, and it’s that touch of touching earthiness I still find so endearing.
Part of what makes Alexander McQueen’s passing so tragic is the nature of his death. It wasn’t the wasting-away rot of cancer or the slow annilation of AIDS, but rather, the scalding horror of self-violence. Despite conjecture, we’ll never know the exact, true reason why he felt the need to leave us -nor should we. His death remains, like his life, his creation alone. It’s just sad that, at the end, he never saw the windows, only the walls; never felt the light, but scraped along in darkness; threw aside creation in favour of destruction. Why? Like so many other suicides, it’s not ours to know. He’s gone, and he’s left us his visions, in colours and textures; in dyes and dances of hems and heels and the height he reached as a one of the greatest visual artists our age has seen. From a fashion cynic to you, Dear McQueen, thank you for the passion, the play, the verve and the vision. I’d say “angels sing thee to thy rest” but frankly, the whir of sewing machines, the dry scrape of pencils against paper, and the click-clak of stiletto heels seem like an infinitely better symphony. Rest tight. The gutter won’t forget you.
