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 is beauty in everything. What 'normal' people would perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it.
Clothes and jewellery should be startling, individual. When you see a woman in my clothes, you want to know more about them. To me, that is what distinguishes good designers from bad designers.
The explosion of museum exhibitions is only a mirror image of what has happened to fashion itself this millennium. With the force of technology, instant images and global participation, fashion has developed from being a passion for a few to a fascination - and an entertainment - for everybody.
I oscillate between life and death, happiness and sadness, good and evil.
There is no way back for me now, I'm going to take you on journeys you've never dreamed possible
Beauty can come from the strangest of places, even the most disgusting of places,
You can only go forward by making mistakes.
There's beauty in anger, and anger for me is a passion.
It's almost like putting armor on a woman. It's a very psychological way of dressing.
I came to terms with not fitting in a long time ago. I never really fitted in. I don't want to fit in. And now people are buying into that.
When I'm dead and gone, people will know that the twenty-first century was started by Alexander McQueen.
It's a new era in fashion - there are no rules. It's all about the individual and personal style, wearing high-end, low-end, classic labels, and up-and-coming designers all together.
The reason I'm patriotic about Scotland is because I think it's been dealt a really hard hand. It's marketed the world over as . . . haggis . . . bagpipes. But no one ever puts anything back into it.
Birds in flight fascinate me. I admire eagles and falcons. I’m inspired by a feather but also its color, its graphics, its weightlessness and its engineering. It’s so elaborate. In fact I try and transpose the beauty of a bird to women.