The History of Alexander McQueen

[Music] [Music] hey everyone welcome back to three education today we'll be covering what i believe to be one of the most important yet heartbreaking stories in all of fashion alexander mcqueen was without a doubt one of the most subversive designers that the industry has ever seen and it's fair to argue that he changed fashion forever but just as much as this is a story of success in triumph it is also one marked by tragedy we'll be talking about all of this and much much more so without further ado let's get into it this is the history of alexander mcqueen in 1969 lee alexander mcqueen was born in london england his father worked as a taxi driver while his mother worked as a teacher and seeing as he was just one of six children it wasn't always easy for their family to make ends meet however this never really bothered mcqueen because from an early age his mind was completely focused on fashion many of the designers that we talk about on this channel discover their talents later in life but even in elementary school he was drawing dresses and using what little material he could find to make pieces for his three sisters this passion of his quickly became an obsession and at the age of 16 he decided to drop out of school so that he could take a course on tailoring at newham college now i want to stop for a second and acknowledge how significant this was mcqueen came from a working class family with no real background in the arts so his decision to leave school and go all in on fashion is the first time that we see him defying expectations to be fair this may have been a risky decision for most people but what you have to realize is that he was extremely gifted at tailoring and he was well aware of that this is what gave him the confidence to pursue tailoring at such a young age and after completing his course at newham college he landed himself an internship at anderson and shepard a bespoke tailoring shop located on savile row in london savile row is famously home to some of the greatest tailors in all of england so this internship was highly prestigious and more importantly it gave him great experience there he learned to the intricacies of making a suit by hand and unsurprisingly he excelled at it after his internship at anderson and shepard ended he moved to another taylor on savile row called gives and hawks and there he worked as a pattern cutter pattern cutting is essentially taking a design in specific measurements then turning that into the actual fabric that will be used for the piece this was a bit different from the work he'd been doing at anderson and shepard but it really helped round out his skill set which i imagine is exactly what he was trying to do the other benefit is that by the end of his tenure at gibson hawks he made a name for himself as one of the most promising young tailors on savile row he worked hard and proved that he was more than capable of doing the job but one thing that i want to touch on here is that during his time on savile row the queen started to embrace a sense of rebelliousness that would someday become a defining part of his identity he had to go about it quietly because he didn't want to run the risk of getting fired but rumor has it that while working on a suit for prince charles he secretly stitched in some rather vulgar language i won't repeat exactly what it said but you can do your own research if you're curious i'm not sure if he was trying to make some sort of political statement or if he just thought it was funny but either way it goes to show the type of person that he was i mean literally nothing good could have come from doing something like that but he wanted to do it so he went ahead and did it anyways moving on mcqueen eventually left gibbs and hawks to begin working for angels and bermans and i know that i'm throwing a lot of different names that you hear but this move may have very well been the one that most heavily shaped the trajectory of his career the reason i say this is because unlike anderson and shepard or gives and hawks which both specialized in suit making angels and berman specialized in theatrical costume design so not only did this expose him to new styles of tailoring but it also helped him develop his flair for the dramatic as we'll see in just a bit many of mcqueen's greatest pieces seem like something out of a play or a movie so it's interesting to consider that angels and berman's is where that may have started for him after this he briefly worked alongside japanese designer koji yatsuno as well as the italian designer romeo gili so even though he spent a significant amount of his time in london his education and tailoring did expose him to different cultures and something that i really want to emphasize here is that he was still extremely young he started this journey into fashion when he was just 16 years old so he'd accomplished everything we just talked about by the time that he was 21. needless to say there were few if any other aspiring designers his age with a resume that strong and with that in mind he decided he was finally ready to apply to the legendary design school central saint martins the only catch was that he wasn't applying to be a student he was applying to be a teacher leveraging the same confidence that had led him to drop out of school and pursue his dreams at the age of 16. he came to the conclusion that he was qualified to teach others about the art of pattern cutting as the story goes he showed up to the school unannounced and requested a meeting with bobby hilson the director of the master's degree course for fashion hilsen agreed to meet but she was quick to inform him that at the age of 21 he was not old enough to become a teacher however she was very impressed with the work that he showed her and so on a whim she invited him to enroll in the masters program that may not have been the answer that he was looking for but mcqueen accepted her offer and officially began attending central saint martins during this time he refined many of the skills that he'd acquired while working his various internships and in 1992 this all culminated in the debut of his graduate collection titled jack the ripper stalks his victims just to be clear this was not the start of his own label a graduate collection is just a collection that design students present in their final year to demonstrate everything that they've learned the reason that this was so pivotal for mcqueen is that it was the first time he was able to have full creative control over the design process and the outcome was a masterfully crafted yet incredibly dark collection according to louise wilson who taught mcqueen at central saint martins each student was asked to write a report that provided context for their collection and his was an intensely personal telling of his family's genealogy wilson says that the report was stolen from her office so we can't be 100 certain but there is a rumor that a relative of his who lived in the 1800s owned the inn that one of jack the ripper's victims lived in again this is not confirmed but it does give rise to one possible explanation as to why he felt personally connected to this story as far as the collection itself one of the standout pieces was the coat you see here which perfectly displays his high level taste for material patterns and construction beyond that he offered what i guess you could call a more modern take on the victorian look and he even experimented a bit as you can see here he decided to sew some of his own hair into the silk that he used and he also put locks of it in plastic which he then attached to a number of the pieces this might sound weird but he later said that this was a reference to a trend in the victorian era where prostitutes would sell locks of their hair still a bit weird but it definitely helps to know where this idea was coming from so having struck the perfect balance between experimentation and technical excellence it's safe to say that mcqueen's collection was a very strong first impression and none were more impressed than stylist and magazine editor isabella blow you see isabella blow happened to be in the audience that day and something about the collection spoke to her in fact it spoke so strongly that she decided to buy the entire collection for 5 000 pounds which is about 6 800 us dollars this is quite a bit of money to pay for an aspiring designer's first collection but isabella was more than willing because she saw his potential in retrospect this chance encounter could not have happened at a better time because you have to remember that this was his graduate collection meaning that when it was done he would be finished with school i'm sure he would have had no trouble going to some big name fashion house and finding work as a design assistant but he didn't want to do that he wanted to start his own label and isabella blow is the one who made that possible by purchasing the collection she gave him the money he needed she let him live in her basement so he wouldn't have any expenses and using some of her industry expertise she sort of became his mentor one of the earliest and most notable contributions to his success was actually helping him pick the name for his label as you may have heard me say earlier he was born lee alexander mcqueen and for his entire life up until that point he had simply gone by the name lee mcqueen but for one reason or another isabella was strongly convinced that he should use his middle name alexander for branding purposes and so that is why his label is named alexander mcqueen even after this he would continue going by lee in his personal life but from this point forward the rest of the world would come to know him by the name alexander and with that part settled he got to work on his debut collection on account of his experience working in the industry and his success at central saint martins lee was fortunate enough to be one of six aspiring designers selected by the british fashion council to have his work shown at london fashion week it wasn't a proper runway show it was actually just a viewing at the ritz hotel where his pieces were displayed on iraq but this was still a great opportunity for him to present his debut collection titled taxi driver the inspiration for this collection was the 1976 film taxi driver and as i mentioned earlier his father was a taxi driver so this likely had a personal meaning to him as well now i would love to show you pictures of this collection but unfortunately there are none following the viewing that day at the hotel lee made the mistake of placing all of the pieces in black trash bags and then leaving them unattended while he went out with some friends whether the bags were thrown away or stolen we don't know but what we do know is that the collection was never photographed or reproduced so in other words the first alexander mcqueen collection only exists in the memories of those who were lucky enough to see it that day this collection was still significant however because it is said to have featured the very first instance of mcqueen's bumpster look which describes pants with a very very low cut waist nowadays this looks a bit strange but this look became very popular in the early 90s and it played a major part in pushing the name alexander mcqueen into mainstream culture following the taxi driver collection he began preparing for his first real runway show and this is where we really start to see his name making headlines you see he made his runway debut with the presentation of his spring summer 1994 collection titled nihilism and in addition to provocative cuts like the one we just saw he decided to have the models appear bloody bruised and caked in dirt it goes without saying that the audience was deeply disturbed and many of them reduced his work down to nothing more than shock value apparently many of the photographers were so horrified that they even stopped taking photos afterwards the show received a lot of negative press with the independent releasing an article titled mcqueen's theater of cruelty in which they paint a vivid picture of what they describe as a horror show now if we're being honest lee may have been going for a bit of shock value because when you make your runway debut you want to leave a lasting impression but in his defense i also think that the press didn't know what they were getting into many of the journalists and photographers that day likely didn't know who mcqueen was and they'd probably been billed a young promising designer from central saint martins who had received support from the british fashion council either way he now had people's attention and over the course of his next few collections he continued pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable on the runway in hindsight we looked back at many of these collections as being progressive and cutting edge but at the time they were nothing short of controversial you see much of lee's work was intended to serve as meaningful commentary whether that be about certain historical periods or social constructs but in providing this commentary he often took things to the extreme and while this did resonate with some people it missed the mark for many others for example brenda poland from the daily mail once accused lee of being a misogynist in an article that she titled the designer who hates women he received a lot of criticism like this and while i do understand that his work was provocative i believe that many of his critics simply didn't understand what he was trying to do from lee's perspective this must have been incredibly frustrating and so it's easy to imagine that he felt misunderstood and perhaps a bit isolated during the early part of his career as difficult as that must have been the argument can be made that all of this controversy actually helped him because it fueled the rebellious public persona that he would become so well known for that said mcqueen headed into the mid 90s with more eyes on him than ever before and that included the eyes of some people in very high places [Music] in 1996 lee mcqueen was appointed the new creative director of givenchy just to give you some background here hubert dejavancy the fashion house's founder had retired in 1955 and was subsequently replaced by john galliano galliano ended up staying for less than a year so lvmh the holding company that owns javanchi sort of had to scramble to find a replacement for their replacement now as we've discussed lee was quite controversial at this point but he was still receiving a lot of praise throughout the industry and earlier that year he'd actually been named the british fashion designer of the year so don't get me wrong i think that this appointment was made based on his merit and talent but i also think that givenchy wanted someone like him that would stir things up and breathe new life into the brand some people were excited by the news but others were not and that included hubert d giovanshi himself after leaving he had no say in who would succeed him but he made it very clear that he was not a fan of mcqueen in fact he would later go on to say that lee's appointment as giovanti was and i quote a total disaster maybe that's a bit harsh but to be fair lee's time at giovansi was tumultuous for a number of different reasons for a young up-and-coming designer like himself i'm sure the invitation to lead a major fashion house was too alluring to turn down but he was very open about the fact that it wasn't a perfect match in a later interview with the guardian he stated his feelings very candidly saying i treated jovanshi badly it was just money to me but there was nothing i could do the only way it would have worked would have been if they had allowed me to change the whole concept of the house and they never wanted me to do that it's pretty common to hear creative directors blame their fashion houses for not giving them enough creative control but i have to give him credit here because he's taking his honesty a step further by saying that he was just doing it for money and he even described his first couture collection for the house as crap unfortunately these woes bled into his personal life as well because his start at givanchi is supposedly when his friendship with isabella blow started to deteriorate as you'll recall she's the one who mentored him when he was first launching his own label and according to people close to them the two of them essentially stopped talking after lee joined javanchi this was a private matter so there could very well be circumstances that we're unaware of here but the rumor is that isabella may have wanted credit perhaps even money for the role that she'd played in getting him to where he was again this was between the two of them so none of this is really confirmed but whatever the reason may be we do know that they went their separate ways and the split was far from amicable between this and a series of collections he himself acknowledged were lackluster lee's tenure at givanchi was an undeniable rough patch as we just discussed his heart clearly wasn't in it but even aside from that his creative directorship seemed destined to fail from the start objectively speaking his style is so much more radical than what shivanshi fans are used to and that's a large part of the reason that his appointment upset huber dejavanchi during his time at the fashion house the media even started calling him lafontaribla which is french for the terrible child because he'd positioned himself as this young defining designer who had no regard for the rules now all of that said i think it's clear to see why i referred to lee's tenure at shivanshi as tumultuous but one thing i want to be clear about is that his namesake label was still doing incredibly well so it's not like he'd fallen off as a designer he was just giving most of his time and attention to his own line as a matter of fact it's probably fair to say that some of the best alexander mcqueen collections were made while he was working at givenchy one of the best and most famous examples of this was his spring 1999 collection titled number 13. and if you're curious it was named that because it was his 13th collection for the label by itself it was fantastic but lee made runway history when he had model shalom harlow spin around center stage as her white dress was spray painted by two robotic arms from a car manufacturing plant if you ask me the reason that this is so special is because it highlights everything that makes him such a brilliant innovative designer i mean here he is blending automated technology with live performance art to create a piece right there in front of the audience this was unlike anything anyone had ever seen and today it's widely cited as one of the highlights of his career obviously the robotic arms stole the show but another interesting fact is that it featured model and paralympic athlete amy mullins mullins walked the runway wearing two wooden legs that lee had crafted by hand and they were so well done that a lot of people thought they were boots and wanted to buy them then as if the number 13 collection wasn't already impressive enough he followed it up in late 2000 with the presentation of his spring 2001 ready to wear collection titled voss and i personally believe that this may have been his best runway show ever so allow me to paint the picture for you the audience members that day shuffled into a dimly lit showroom as the sound of a pulsating heart played over the audio system they made their way to their seats and waited for the show to begin but all they were met with was their own reflection because in front of them there was a large glass box with no knowledge of what was about to unfold they sat in this uncomfortable environment for nearly an hour and then with no warning the glass box started to illuminate so that everyone could see what was inside models began walking the runway and one interesting bit of information here is that this glass box was actually constructed using two-way mirrors so the audience could see the models but the models could not see the audience this jumps out to me as a very interesting decision because lee was not only considering the perspective of the audience he was considering the perspective of the people wearing his clothes and that's something i haven't really seen other designers do one of the reasons i think that he did this was because he wanted to create a degree of separation like we've seen with his other collections lee likes to pick a theme to work from and for boss it appears that he was trying to recreate the atmosphere of an insane asylum to that end he sort of wanted the models to be in their own world and at one point in the show they pressed themselves against the glass and looked outwards but they couldn't see anything so their stairs came off as blank and desolate now clearly this presentation was wildly intriguing but don't let that distract you from the actual pieces in the collection some of the looks were more understated as seen with this model wrapped in bandages wearing a plain suit but others were extremely intricate like this look where the model is wearing a feathered skirt and has three hawks around her head so overall there is a pretty wide range of different looks but somehow lee made it all cohesive even in this unsettling combination of fantasy and nightmare nothing looks out of place earlier on in his career he'd been widely criticized for letting the horror outshine the beauty but with this collection he struck the perfect balance if you've been paying close attention to the video you may have seen a smaller rusty looking box in the middle of the runway most people in the audience probably didn't even notice it but after the last model exited the runway the walls on this box fell to the floor shattering and revealing the journalist michelle ollie covered in moths and hooked up to a respirator this might seem a bit random and it certainly was shocking to everyone in attendance but lee later confirmed that this scene was inspired by joel peter witkin the photographer behind this image titled sanitarium as intended this is pretty disturbing but it really was the perfect way to close out this nightmare brought to life on the heels of collections like this and many others lee mcqueen headed into the early 2000s as one of the most talked about designers in fashion by the year 2000 he was becoming so popular that the gucci group now owned by caring purchased a majority stake in his namesake label i should also mention that in 2001 his contract with givanshi officially ended and as expected neither party had interest in renewing it that was no problem though because with gucci's backing lean now had the money that he needed to continue expanding and this is when we really started to see alexander mcqueen become more of a household name he was already a staple at fashion week but this acquisition helped improve facets of the business such as manufacturing distribution and even his retail presence as alexander mcqueen's stores began popping up around the globe he also started expanding his product line and this included a menswear line up until this point he'd only focused on women's wear but in 2004 he decided to give menswear a chance and this too would become extremely popular all in all things really could not have been going better for alexander mcqueen but for lee mcqueen the man behind it all it was a totally different story [Music] anyone that looks at mcqueen's work will be able to deduce that he was tormented by some very dark thoughts he often explored macabre themes such as death despair and violence not just because he was fascinated with them but because these were the types of things that occupied his mind it's never easy to understand why someone feels this way but it would later be revealed that lee suffered abuse as a child and during his adulthood he wrestled with drug and alcohol addiction one thing that i think speaks to who lee was as a person is that even while he was struggling to persevere through his own adversities he used his platform to show support for others for instance in this now famous photo from 2005 he can be seen wearing a shirt that says we love you kate which was his response to the media dragging model kate moss for her drug use even in his darkest moments he was a loving person and i think that explains a lot about his work he wasn't using fashion to champion these macabre concepts he was using it to peel back the layers and perhaps make them a bit less daunting now unfortunately the weight of the world can sometimes be too much and i do just want to give you a heads up here that this next part of the video will be touching on some very sensitive topics in 2007 lee's former mentor isabella blow committed suicide at one point in time the two of them had been inseparable she purchased his first collection welcomed him into her home and even helped him pick the name alexander mcqueen but as we touched on earlier it was after his appointment at javanchi that they had a major falling out leaving their friendship irreparably damaged isabella had of course been struggling with her own mental health issues and according to people close to her she said she felt like she'd been left behind in the fashion world whether or not this was a direct reference to her falling out with lee all we can do is speculate but one thing we know for certain is that her passing profoundly affected him they'd had their issues with one another but deep down he'd always kept a place for her in his heart and that's why he made his spring 2008 collection titled ladaine blue specifically in her memory the collection ended up being one of mcqueen's most vibrant showing that light will shine even in the darkest environments nevertheless this loss was mounted on top of the personal issues that he was already dealing with and while we wouldn't know this until later lee's doctor confirmed that he actually attempted suicide at least twice during 2009 again nobody knew this so they weren't able to put the full picture together but supposedly he began informing friends that his spring summer 2010 collection titled plato's atlantis would be his last and unfortunately it would be on february 11th of 2010 nearly one week after the passing of his mother lee mcqueen committed suicide at his home in london he left behind a note written on the back of charles darwin's book the descent of man and it ended bluntly saying look after my dogs sorry i love you lee it goes without saying that his death devastated the fashion industry and fans around the world mourned the loss of a generational talent people as unique and impactful as lee mcqueen are incredibly rare and to lose him so soon is nothing short of a tragedy technically speaking plato's atlantis was his last show but shortly before his death he has started working on his fall winter 2010 collection titled angels and demons the whole thing is just sadly poetic because as the name implies this collection was heavily centered around the afterlife and is also sort of strange to consider that he designed the collection towards the end of his life but with the help of his design team it was only completed and presented after his death although he may be gone there's no doubt in my mind that his influence will live on and so will his name because after he passed sarah burton stepped in to continue running the label in his memory sarah burton originally joined alexander mcqueen as an intern worked her way to becoming the head of women's wear and earned her place as one of lee's most trusted advisors in 2011 just one year after stepping into the role she was named the british fashion council's designer of the year and since then she's gone on to do a fantastic job of honoring lee's life and protecting his legacy to put it simply i think that alexander mcqueen the label is in good hands headed into the future and my hope is that sarah burton will continue down the path that she's on for a long time to come now as painful as its ending is there is still something very beautiful about lee's life story at a young age he decided he wanted to pursue fashion he just about mastered the craft before his peers had even started to learn it with his appointment at givenchy he rose to the top of a fiercely competitive industry and he solidified his own label as one of the most disruptive in all of fashion by some miracle he accomplished all of this and much much more while quietly battling his own demons and although he sadly lost that battle his work will serve as a permanent reminder that horror and beauty may not be so different after all you

Channel: Threaducation

Views: 459,751

Keywords: Alexander mcqueen, mcqueen, Alexander McQueen interview, interview, fashion, streetwear, design, model, modeling, fashion week, fashion school, education, how to, learn

Id: ZUZx1cIfY2c

Length: 27min 21sec (1641 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 21 2022

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[u/Curious-Salamander23]

Great video love theaducation