Designer of the Month: Alexander McQueen

Now, I know that "Blogger ate my homework" is not a valid excuse for skipping out on my weekly Designer of the Month post, but as other Blogger users know from last's week's little snafu, it's not only the truth, but it's also no fun at all. Anyway, let's try this again, shall we?

In 1985, at the age of 16, Alexander McQueen left school for an apprenticeship with the Savile Row tailors Anderson & Shephard, where he began to develop his aesthetic and learn such skills as both the practical process of creating suites and the methods for reconstructing period tailoring.[1] From there, he moved to the theatrical costumiers Angels and Bermans, where he mastered pattern cutting.[2] At 20, he went to work for the Japanese designer Koji Tatsuno, who had also been trained in British tailoring, traveling to Milan a year later to work as an assistant for Italian designer Romeo Gigli's.[3] In 1992, McQueen returned to London to complete a degree in Fashion Design at Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design where, in a now legendary move, style guru and former Fashion Editor of Vogue, Isabella Blow, bought out his entire graduate collection, taking on the young designer as a mentee, and helping to launch his own label.[4] The collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims, revealed McQueen's fascination with Victorian culture and established a distinctly narrative, autobiographical approach to design (One of McQueen’s relatives owned an inn that housed a victim of Jack the Ripper) that would come to be a hallmark of McQueen's style.[5]

 Alexander McQueen, Coat, from the Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims MA Graduation Collection, 1992. Pink silk satin printed in thorn pattern lined in white silk with encapsulated human hair. From the collection of Isabella Blow. Photography by Sølve Sundsbø. Courtesy of the Hon. Daphne Guinness and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

As McQueen explained about the above Coat, “The inspiration behind the hair came from Victorian times when prostitutes would sell theirs for kits of hair locks, which were bought by people to give to their lovers. I used it as my signature label with locks of hair in Perspex. In the early collections, it was my own hair.”[6] After the success of his MA collection, McQueen exploded onto the international scene with subversive designs, such as the controversial 1995 Highland Rape collection, which included was stitched together from left over scraps of fabric and included torn lace, something that would become one of McQueen's signature design elements.[7]

Alexander McQueen, Dress, Highland Rape, autumn/winter 1995–96. Green and bronze cotton/synthetic lace. Photography by Sølve Sundsbø. Courtesy of Alexander McQueen and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

In 1996, at the age of 27, just two years after meeting Isabella Blow, McQueen was named British Designer of the Year, the first of four times - the other three were in 1997, 2001 and 2003 - that he would receive this honor.[8] Also in 1996, McQueen he was appointed Chief Designer at Givenchy, but unfortunately, the relationship was a tumultuous one.[9] As McQueen explained to the Guardian in 2005 about this decision, "the only way it would have worked would have been if they had allowed me to change the whole concept of the house, to give it a new identity, and they never wanted me to do that."[10] As Givenchy's brand of understated Parisian elegance was so different from the designs of the young McQueen, in the end, he refused to compromise his creative vision, and left the fashion house in 2001.[11]

 Alexander McQueen, Evening Dress, Givenchy fall/winter 1997. Photography by Pierre Verdy/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images. Courtesy of The New York Times.

In December 2000, 51% of the Alexander McQueen label was acquired by the Gucci Group, although McQueen remained Creative Director, a move that provided McQueen with both the financial and creative means to split with Givenchy, giving him the room he needed to explore his own vision and allowing him to truly come into his own as a fashion designer.[12]

[1] Kristin Knox, "Introduction," in Alexander McQueen: Genius of A Generation (London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2010), 7.

[2] Alexander McQueen online, "Biography: Lee Alexander McQueen," http://www.alexandermcqueen.com/int/en/servicePages/biography_lee_alexander_mcqueen.aspx (accessed May 18, 2011).


[3] Ibid.


[4] Kristin Knox, "Introduction," in Alexander McQueen: Genius of A Generation (London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2010), 8.

[5] Andrew Bolton, "Coat, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims (MA Graduation Collection), 1992," from the exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty online, http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/coat-jack-the-ripper/ (accessed May 19, 2011).


[6] Alexander McQueen, Time Out (London), September 24-October 1, 1997, from the exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty online, http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/coat-jack-the-ripper/ (accessed May 19, 2011).

[7] Kristin Knox, "Introduction," in Alexander McQueen: Genius of A Generation (London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2010), 10.

[8] Ibid. 


[9] Alexander McQueen online, "Biography: Lee Alexander McQueen," http://www.alexandermcqueen.com/int/en/servicePages/biography_lee_alexander_mcqueen.aspx (accessed May 18, 2011).

[10] Kristin Knox, "Introduction," in Alexander McQueen: Genius of A Generation (London: A & C Black Publishers Limited, 2010), 10.

[11] Ibid., 10. 


[12] Alexander McQueen online, "Biography: Lee Alexander McQueen," http://www.alexandermcqueen.com/int/en/servicePages/biography_lee_alexander_mcqueen.aspx (accessed May 18, 2011).