Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen was a British fashion designer well known for his bespoke tailoring and controversial runways earning him the name L’Enfant terrible.

McQueen began his career as an apprentice in Savile Row traditional men’s bespoke tailors Anderson and Shepherd. McQueen did a variety of apprenticeships, gaining multiple skills and experiences. He then applied to Central Saint Martin to work as a pattern cutter but was persuaded based on his good portfolio work to enrol as a student. McQueen graduated with a master’s degree in fashion design. His entire graduation collection was bought by the now pasted influential fashion stylist Isabella Blow; she help McQueen launched himself as a new designer and promoted his work to the right people.

McQueen’s early runways were brutally theatrical and shocked his audiences, he was known as a “hooligan of British fashion”. Some well-known pieces were the Bumster trousers, fashionable builder’s bum, and the collection “Highland Rape”, an aggressive combination of what seemed like attacked models, portraying the “rape” of Scotland by England.

As McQueen became more recognised he was offered a position in Givenchy as Chief Designer and later founded his own label. The use of new technology and innovative ideas continually made McQueen’s collections fresh and new. Mould breaking models such as double amputee Aimee Mullins modelled for McQueen and plus sized models, you “always expected the unexpected”.

February 11^th 2010, Alexander McQueen was found dead in his flat, he had committed suicide the day before his mother’s funeral. He will forever influence and be remembered as creating much more than just clothes but life, dreams and a broke limits in what was thought can be done.