Last night after getting home, I wanted to unwind by watching one of my many trashy TV shows on Hulu, but for some reason, everyone took a break last week, so I didn’t miss anything. Bummed that I had to find something new, I browsed through Hulu, finding an old documentary about Alexander McQueen from about 10 years ago, he was barely 30 at the time, Isabella Blow was still alive, Carla Bruni was still a model, and Anna Wintour looked 10 years older than she does today. A lot of the documentary centered around the conflict he felt designing for Givenchy, as it was filmed just before he left the and turned his complete attention to his own line.
I really liked how they positioned him as an artist with extraordinary craftsmanship, as he sits for an interview in a local park dressed in a Lacoste polo shirt and cargo pants, you really see that even with his intensely creative and dark designs, he was astoundingly down to earth and vulnerable.
McQueen says in the documentary, “I’m not the fashion type, I don’t really fit in with fashion people…”
Half the time I wonder who really does. Then he goes on to say, “I don’t think I’ve done my best work yet.”
As I was watching this, Wendy forwarded over McQueen’s last interview with the Times..
“…I started cleaning up my business. And I’ve never been happier. I work much harder.” Later, when I repeat the conversation to Jonathan Akeroyd, McQueen’s chief executive for the past five years, he says: “I think Lee sells himself short, to be honest. He’s not one of these guys who brings his emotional issues to work.”
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i do not know why exactly. but no other public figure’s death has affected me in such a physically emotional way. his suicide took my breath away in the worst of ways. knowing of someone’s death so quickly too makes it more tangible perhaps. McQueen was always someone i followed but i wasn’t obsessed until that last show. where the designs, the huge robocams and the crashed live internet viewing [indicative of the crescendo of interest] intersected, pointed the way, and explained where fashion & technology & emerging types of press & old & new audiences & ways of consuming could now go. it was exhilarating. the structure of the presentation was reassuring as a potential blueprint for progress but the imagery and scale of the presentation managed to also retain that strange fear we have in these possibly apocalyptic times. which was also- perfect. to see him fall after that… is a disturbing equation.
between his and Daul’s recent suicides, which we also watched so closely online, and who i found so impossibly brilliant, disturbed and beautiful, sometimes i think all you can do is to choose to be aggressively positive, even if sometimes there is no reason.
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it’s really affected me too… i can’t stop thinking about him, why he did it. the more i learn about him, the more i’m not surprised, he was a sensitive outsider with a tendency for macabre and extraordinary hard on himself..
that said, with all the questions as to why, the fact remains that there is never a reason why anyone chooses to take their own life, because there is no reason except perhaps that of severe untreated depression, and distorted sense of reality, because most things pass… even when times look the darkest.
Ugh. Death is much more devastating when you know it was an accident or illness, something beyond control.
Such a waste. Such a shame.
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” Anna Wintour looked 10 years older than she does today. ” = bwah!
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Thank you so much for sharing this, it was a great interview with amazing front row viewings of his previous shows. My heart really breaks for him. His feeling of un-acceptance with himself is tragic. He was an amazing artist. I hate that he felt so begrudgingly and overall dissatisfaction dissatisfaction with his career his road leading to it. Very Sad. Thank you again.
Wow…Thank you so much for sharing this. I think you said it best, jennine, when you say that he was a ‘sensitive outsider’. It really comes through: in his posture, his accent, his utter lack of any kind of pretentious airs.
i still can’t believe he is gone..he was truly an artist in every sense, creative, outside of the box, attention to detail, superior craft-man ship..there is no other fashion designer out there that comes even close to what he did..he stood alone…so sad, it’s really still very sad…can’t wait to see his final runway show…the last we will ever see…
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