McQueen was discovered by iconic and eccentric UK stylist Isabella Blow in the 90s after leaving school at 16 to apprentice with two of the most revered tailors in England, Anderson & Sheppard and then Gieves & Hawkes. After completing his Masters at Central St. Martins design college - where Blow discovered him and purchased his entire thesis collection (delivered, apparently, in garbage bags) - McQueen rapidly cemented himself as a controversial, highly talented, obsessive fashion prodigy. Despite being awarded the British Young Designer of the Year 4 times, and enjoying remarkable success both at Givenchy where he designed for 5 yrs (turning the label - known primarily for elegant black dresses - on its head) before taking on his own, eponymous label which he later sold to the Gucci Group, McQueen was plagued with emotional fickleness and a troubled personal life.
From one of his collections for Givenchy. McQueen riled French fashion press claiming that the original designer for Givency's work was "redundant". McQueen was devastated by the death first of Blow, in 2007, who commit suicide following news of an ovarian cancer diagnosis, and later by his mother's death on February 2 this year.
From McQueen's Blow tribute collection.McQueen was frequently controversial, his renegade instinct developing early on, when he stitched an anti-royalist imprecation - "I am a cunt” - into the sleeve lining of a suit sewn for the Prince of Wales. He also referenced the ravaging of Scotland by England by showing brutalized women in a collection called “Highland Rape.” Other runway shows featured shipwrecks, human chess games, models styled as mental patients and holograms (including the infinity runway created for his Spring 2010 show).
McQueen famously stated that “When you see a woman wearing McQueen, there’s a certain hardness to the clothes that makes her look powerful… It kind of fends people off. You have to have a lot of balls to talk to a woman wearing my clothes.”
RIP.
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