Memorising McQueen

Feb 11: A tragic thrusday for the Fashion Industry.Lee Alexander McQueen one of the fashion’s very own daring and delicate iconic and most loved designer was tragically found hanged at his London apartment. The world reeled in shock. A tragic lose for not only the british fashin industry but to the entire fashion world.McQueen was just 40 and this age he truley has created his niche in fashion.His work is recepted and admired by every fashionista on this planet.

Mcqueen was born in 1969 in London. He left school at the age of 16 and since then he was dating with fashion like a true divotee of it. Being a great designer he was a master tailor too, his carriar began at Sovil Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard. Then he moved to kohji Tatsuno to work as a pattern cutter and then flew to Milan to work for Romeo Gigli. After that he returned to London and enrolled for an MA in Fashion . He earned his master's degree in fashion design from London's Central Saint Martins in 1992.

In 1991 his entire degree show was bought by influential stylist Isabella Blow, whose later suicide in 2007 led to him dedicating his entire spring/summer 2008 collection to her memory. It was Isabella Blow who discovered him and relentlessly promoted him. She persuaded McQueen to change his name from Lee to Alexander.

Alexander McQueen’s designedgarments were as outrageous as his presentation of them. His shows were always full of their shocking value he made nearly impossible happen before our eyes. He was a designer’s designer. His look was always spectacle with a true amalgam of Design and technology. His incredible Savile Row cutting and tailoring techniques with his sad Goth romanticism was presented in splendid and high tech shows season after season. His models walked on ramp with fire, water, ice, wild animals etc.

McQueen enjoyed shocking the world with his outrageous designs like bumster pants and through his presentation, who can forget Shalom Harlow being spray painted by car factory robots for his S/S 1999 collection. He liked blowing people’s minds.

McQueen won the British Fashion Awards' British Designer of the Year four times and won the Men's Wear Designer of the Year award in 2004. In 2003, he received the CFDA Award for Best International Designer and was honored with a CBE from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the fashion industry.

McQueen’s designs were flamboyant and theatric too. His theatric influence can be seen in his every collection like the wooden fan kilts from his S/S 1999 collection, the red slide dress from S/S 2001, the jelly fish dress from A/W 2002 or his S/S 2010 collection which featured alien-inspired make-up and reptilian prints.

McQueen’s garment always had a constructive look. A signature McQueen jacket is always with nipped shoulder or a very slim waist with a couture constructive romanticism, which he might have learnt during his years at Givenchy.

Being a lecturer of fashion theory, I have dedicated my many lectures to his work, which has truly motivated the budding designers not only from India but from the Gulf too.

Lee Alexander McQueen was a true visionary designer. His was a fashion fuelled by the shocking, a creative sense so beyond the norm that you couldn’t help but stare-who could forget when he sent amputee Aimee Mullins down the runway in 1999? And that’s how he’ll be remembered, the fashion genius whose exit from the world was as shocking as the life he lived.

He will be missed greatly.