Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen
Lee Alexander McQueen, CBEwas a British fashion designer and couturier. He is known for having worked as chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001 and for founding his own Alexander McQueen label. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards, as well as the CFDA's International Designer of the Year award in 2003. McQueen committed suicide in 2010 at the age of forty...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionFashion Designer
Date of Birth17 March 1969
CityLondon, England
I think there has to be an underlying sexuality. There has to be a perverseness to the clothes. There is a hidden agenda in the fragility of romance. It's like a Story of O. I am not big on women looking naive. There has to be a sinister aspect, whether it's melancholy of sadomasochist. I think everyone has a deep sexuality, and sometimes it's good to use a little of it-and sometimes a lot of it-like a masquerade.
For a long time I was looking for my perfect equilibrium, my mojo. And now I think I'm getting there: I've found my customer, my silhouette, my cut.
Give me time and I'll give you a revolution.
It is important to look at death because it is a part of life. It is a sad thing, melancholy but romantic at the same time. It is the end of a cycle - everything has to end. The cycle of life is positive because it gives room for new things.
There comes a time in your life when you focus solely on what you believe is right, regardless of what everybody else is doing.
People find my things sometimes aggressive. But I don't see it as aggressive. I see it as romantic, dealing with a dark side of personality.
Style is not about the clothes, it's about the individual
When we put the antlers on the model and then draped over it the lace embroidery that we had made, we had to poke them through a £2,000 piece of work. But then it worked because it looks like she's rammed the piece of lace with her antlers. There's always spontaneity. You've got to allow for that in my shows.
Clothes and jewellery should be startling, individual.
Menswear is about subtlety. It's about good style and good taste.
If you ask any lady they want to be taller, they want to be slimmer, you know, and they want a waist. I'm not here to make people look like a sack of potatoes.
I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists.
I used flowers because they die. My mood was darkly romantic at the time.
Of course I make mistakes. I'm human. If I didn't make mistakes, I'd never learn. You can only go forward by making mistakes.