The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen was one of if not the best designer of his generation he could cut drape design excite and most importantly could run a cracking good business today the brand is vastly different to how it once was but that's not necessarily A Bad Thing this video is informed by these books these documentaries their tax documents and several other media pieces soon I will be releasing the long promised life and death of Lima Queen but because of the current length I will be releasing a shortened version here and the full version will be available on my patreon which is linked below the history of the brand begins with Lima Queen's graduate collection The Collection was inspired by Jack the Ripper and constructionally was informed by all of his previous training and work experience he had traditional British tailoring from Anderson and Shepard complicated construction from Koji tetsuno fetishism from John McKittrick and the 19th century decadence from Romeo jiggly all of which tied together in his uniquely dark manner The Collection was the penultimate in the central Martins M.A graduate show but was distinguishable because of its unique construction elements including the use of human hair brutal red paint distress pieces and interesting Prints but to those who understood construction the most notable Triumph of the collection was the Precision of the many tailored jackets in fact it was specifically this tailoring that caught the eye of Isabella blow Isabella at this point was an associate Editor to British Vogue and was on the hunt for new Talent when she was struck by his tailoring ability and subsequently zeroed in on McQueen as her future protege she went backstage after the show and immediately tried to buy the collection but McQueen turned her down because he did not trust her he was very skeptical about her and whether she would really buy it to quote rivermith her cigar she was pretty flamboyant about who she knew or her connections and Lee thought she was pretty crazy but she persisted she tracked down his home phone number and repeatedly called his mother Joyce to ask for him finally after a great deal of persuasion Lee named a price of around 450 pounds which is around a thousand pounds today for each outfit and Isabella was more than happy to pay as long as it could be done in the installments you may have heard from Isabella's perspective that over the years she purchased the entire collection for 5 000 British pounds however we know now that this was not the entire collection just shy of that in fact and we also know that it took a lot of reminders to get her to give him the installments however despite Isabella's interest and encouragement Lee was still not sold on starting his own company just yet he'd considered it and on the recommendation of Mentor John McKittrick in the past that was the reason he went to Central Martins in the first place but he was initially looking to get a solid job in fashion as a design assistant or even an internship in order to further his studies he even went as far as to get in touch with Alice Smith and cressidia Pai who were running denza a fashion recruitment company who helped him to meet with famous designer Martin margiela in Paris for an internship interview however margiela actually turned McQueen down because he was too talented and told him to return to London to start his own company basically everyone around McQueen were all pushing him to get his own company and yet his development into that wasn't really intentional it's simply that while on this job search he continued experimenting with fashion at home and a second collection just started to take form as did the brand after he saw naming labeling and PR help from those around him however despite the team's best efforts this was a decidedly bad time to launch a brand in London you see at this time in the early 90s Britain's fashion industry was really dying the company showing on the catwalk fell from 46 in the late 80s to 21 in 1990 to only 13 shows in 1993 and at the trade show which supplemented Fashion Week they'd gone from 250 brands in 1990 to Amiga 60 in 1993. you see while England was still recovering from a recession there was similar a difficulty to manufacture garments in England that led most of the top British designers to go to Paris or Milan to sustain their businesses as a consequence London was failing to attract enough International press and buyers and it was no longer cost effective for designers to show there and so it doesn't seem as if anyone was really expecting McQueen to put on a proper show for this collection at all as it just didn't make any Financial sense luckily for Lee realizing these detrimental shortcomings of London Fashion Week the British fashion Council announced that they would fund with a small sum of money six young designers including McQueen two present their collections in the trade show during London Fashion Week in March held in the Ritz hotel meaning that Against All Odds McQueen would in fact soon present his first solo collection on the London Fashion Week schedule to build up his reputation for the upcoming presentation and hopefully land a few sales Isabella took Lee to several retailers to present his clothes he showed it to a few places including two Browns who turned it down because it wasn't a full collection and yet still did make a sale here or there however unbeknownst to these clients these pieces would soon become some of the most sought after McQueen pieces ever following their trade show debut The Collection was presented in the Ritz and in its maximalist style was unlike any of the popular design Styles at the time shown on a single clothes rack on mismatched hangers there was a silk coat dress with a quilted and Jewel collar caplets crafted from black feathers frock coats tail coats with dramatic Silhouettes a small corseted jacket with intricate Victorian jet beading and of course the infamous bumpster trousers that were exceptionally low-cut trousers that exposed the top of the buttocks which he claimed were to lengthen the line of the Torso in a way to bring attention to the bottom of the spine which several books likened to homoerotic content the bumpsters were the Smoking Gun of the entire exhibition as it concreted his ability to create a truly new line in fashion to quote gods and Kings rarely in fashioned as someone actually create a new line Coco Chanel did it with her soft corsetless silhouette in the 1920s Christian Dior with his wasp wasted full-skirted new look in 1958 Mary komp with the miniskirt in 1960. most fashion designers strive their entire career to come up with something new and never achieve it McQueen did it in his first collection out of school to the idea of dropping that waistline and making the legs shorter reinvented the presentation of sexuality in women's clothing in a homoerotic way and proved what everyone around him knew that he was already far more talented than the majority of people in fashion at that time the impact that these trousers would have was inevitable for this reason he knew that he had redefined fashion and so with his industry knowledge planned the rest of the collection as wearable complementary garments around this line in order to demonstrate its Commercial Appeal however this was purely for show to demonstrate his understanding of the market especially considering he couldn't produce most of the orders he took anyway because he didn't have anywhere to manufacture them effectively he understood the lvmh model which is using big expensive shows as marketing to sell perfumes and bags before it gained the prevalence that it has today but from his experience he knew that he could only afford to do this because of the invention of this new line which showed a genuine constructional talent to invent the truly new without which he would be all bark and no bite other designers at the Ritz even mocked him for this tactic because he took less orders but Lee had been in the game in apprenticeships since 1986 and knew what he was doing he had a great balance between showpieces meant to shock and get attention and Commercial garments that could be sold if he had a stockist this was a tactic he used literally for every single collection of the entire brand from this point onwards which really in turn became his biggest differentiator in the industry over time even if critics didn't quite understand it for these reasons it's considered to be one of McQueen's most important collections however when the exhibition came to a close and they went to celebrate their success because he had no personal money for the code check the clothes were left in rubbish bags next to bins outside a London Bar Named man stink and were accidentally thrown away by the rubbish bin men as they came to collect the rubbish the next morning which incredibly means that those few clothes saw before and the few that sold after are all that is left of this collection including literally only one pair of the original bumpster trousers which are sold at auction in 2014 for 3500 pounds The Collection has however been recently remade by the design museum in London and specifically with Simon unglas part of the original McQueen team and Lee's boyfriend at the time which are the images that you've seen throughout this section and though it's not the exact same clothes it's about as close as we have in documentation except for this piece of PR that my friend documoda on Tick Tock was able to find however following this collection once again Lee had no intention of making a third collection he was ambivalent about continuing Fashion on his own thought there was too much responsibility not enough money and frankly he was scared of failure he wanted a steady paycheck and a job that could keep him creatively satisfied despite this everyone around him kept pushing him to continue in fashion Isabella specifically would not take no for an answer but thought his personal look was holding him back from Gaining respect in the industry for example he wasn't allowed into the Vogue offices because of his teeth which were Rage with gingivitis at the time and so they had to sneak him in during lunch time when everyone was out that's to say he was making clothes on the side to make ends meet but had no intention of making a third collection at least that was until he saw the graduate collection of Hussein challenge having recently graduated from Central Martins boys graduate collection Hussain chalian made several silk dresses buried them in his back garden and dug them up for The Graduate show this concept fascinated McQueen who had always been interested in decomposition as a theme and so began experimenting himself with staining destroying and decaying Fabrics eventually McQueen saw it come together as a produced collection and seeing how good it was all of his friends urged him to stage a bona fide full-on fashion show and yet even with his mind now changed he still didn't think he could afford it he'd seen catwalk shows and knew how much they cost and yet his friends were completely unrelenting eventually he figured he may as well try he had nothing to lose and so tossed his new friend Satan Island to convince people to give them things for free to allow them to do it on the smallest possible budget she ended up producing music scouting their location which was the bluebird garage and on the day of the show in lieu of underwear even wrapped models in cling film the show itself was held in October 1993 and featured even more shocking imagery than ever before as models appeared with faces covered in blood and dirt some even appearing to be wounded this was likely an extension of the shock Factor he knew that he needed and was also an extension of the narrative medium of Storytelling which would become a third major theme for identifying a McQueen show and yet once again in this display of shock and extravagance the clothes held their own due to the sheer Brilliance in construction the bumps to trousers made their return for their first catwalk appearance joined by several other showpieces that exposed the model's breasts and nipples but the standouts were the commercial Pieces by way of coats jackets and blouses that were made of solid or torn fabrics and yet were still salable in fact though these garments were very highly desired and best sellers you have many commercial ideas including his first simplified logo here used on a t-shirt of an uppercase q encasing a lowercase C which obviously had potential to be transferred onto Cash Cow or licensed products in the future it hadn't happened yet but to see this forethought in his design evidenced an understanding of the industry above so many others this was really the saving grace to the collection because if it wasn't for the exceptional construction and brilliantly conceived garments the reviews that centered around this quote theater of Cruelty would have been far more scathing instead they were forced to acknowledge his exceptional traditional skills and adapt tailoring that were used in a way to say something new however interestingly these lesson Stellar reviews or the big Publications that chose to ignore the show seem to primarily come from Europe where they were still somewhat fighting the rise of British fashion designers like Vivian Westwood and John Galliano they simply thought they were above all that kind of theatricality while all the reviews coming from America Lord did McQueen of offering a solution to the identity crisis of London Fashion Week that I mentioned earlier in the video it's not that they didn't note the difficult presentation but they understood the necessity of it which those in Europe just didn't seem to respect one writer for the independent even called the show a horror show and sorry as misogynistic without understanding that this was Lee's way of empowering his sister Janet against her abusive husband this unfortunately is another theme that followed McQueen throughout his career with countless journalists decrying his work misunderstanding his autobiographical referencing and likening McQueen to being brutish vulgar or misogynistic many today see this comparison to misogyny as unfair but at the time several outspoken journalists thought that he had a perverse view of women and used their opinion to discredit him this in turn obviously affected sales and though he did take orders for a respectable 200 pieces from The Collection he still didn't have a manufacturer despite his best efforts therefore what little of this collection was actually produced was made by McQueen himself inside Isabella blow's house where he was living at the time however though many retailers couldn't purchase in wholesale numbers they found other ways of helping for example Joan bursting of Browns having not ordered anything again instead instructed her employee Janet fishgrond to seek him out and help him with PR on her dime which saw that the collection was displayed in their window for promotional support instead everyone on the McQueen boat knew that the next step for his business was to find an investor however this proved to be quite the hurdle as he had a lack of knowledge on how to acquire backers and he knew that there was no way that he would get that kind of backing in Britain who so far had been shamefully neglectful of his talent so the team turned to PR they figured that if they could make the Alexander McQueen brand famous then investors would come to them so the pr from Isabella blow Alice Smith Janet fishkind and now even from Lee himself who was spreading various rumors to the Press directly to stir up interest played a massive part in the rise of Alexander McQueen at this time especially after the December 1993 Vogue editorial Anglo-Saxon attitudes all of which pretty much single-handedly turned McQueen from an underground barely known designer to The Wider public to one that had hordes of fans this Fame in turn helped him formalize his business under the name Blue Swan mere days before the Autumn winter 94 show Banshee according to their tax documents and almost immediately found them offers from investors to buy a stake in his business namely this would come from a man named IR Bocce who had production deals with designers like Jean pogottier and Anton mulumista who offered McQueen 10 000 pounds for a major stake in the business but McQueen knew that he was being low bored so politely declined his offer in fact it was only after Bocce saw a New York hosted representation of his two previous collections nihilism and Banshee in the spring of 1994 he would consider renegotiating he ended up deciding he wanted to see one more McQueen show to see the commercial viability but little did he know he was about to witness in the Queen's most successful collection to date by far spring summer 95 the birds once again the American Press were fawning the audience that were mostly students and club kids were fighting to get in and the British press was orbit absent and yet still McQueen was probably the most talked about designer in London so knowing they could easily use this popularity to scale the business it leaves no question as to why Bocce and McQueen Drew up two contracts shortly after however what Bocce didn't expect was that because of McQueen's background he understood all the jargon understood what he was worth and what what she was offering so was able to negotiate a mutually beneficial contract in a pain-free manner the first of these contracts was to guarantee the distribution of McQueen's fashion for 15 years and the second was a manufacturing agreement to use Bocce as the middle person between Alexander McQueen and an appropriately equipped Factory to produce his precise Vision marking literally the first time that Alexander McQueen had a manufacturing plan freeing Lee McQueen and his team up to work on design without worrying about producing the retail offering personally partially as a result of this and partially as a result of the amazing PR efforts including our PR team in New York the British fashion council could no longer outright ignore McQueen and were all but forced to include him in the larger space in London Fashion Week in the Natural History Museum and agreed to underwrite the entire show but little did they know this was to be the most important show of McQueen's entire career Buzz was beginning for the collection months before anticipation was high rumors were spreading of what morbid Horrors Lee would unleash on the world and he was easily the number one ticket to have in the entire London Fashion Week all of which meant that by the day of March 13 1995 the scene outside was true pandemonium funded in part by the British Health Association who had donated 10 000 pounds Autumn winter 95 was titled Highland rape and conceptually was about England's rape of the Scottish culture and land after both the Battle of Culloden and the Highland clearances which was the English genocide of Scotland the queen cared very deeply about his Scottish Heritage from his father's side and so this to him was a very obvious Narrative of the Fallout of the Jacobite rebellion after which the Scottish were forbidden in engaging in traditionally Scottish or Highland culture countless jacobites and Clan chiefs were killed the Bonnie King of Scotland was exiled farmers were forced off their land creating a starvation that forced Mass immigration to America and even the Scottish dress was banned including Kilts and any kind of tartan England literally raped Scotland of their land and their culture hence the name of the collection Highland rape thus the collection was to dispel this romanticized fake history of England and Scotland to bring attention to the 1995 legislation that was devolving Scottish Parliament and to express a romantic lament to McQueen's own Scottish Roots including smartly using the McQueen Tartan financed with 300 pounds by detmar blow and produced by locharon Mill to evidence his personal collection and his anger with feeling robbed of his own culture in his own words the Scottish Highlands have been of great inspiration to many designers in the past but they've been romanticized all too often he then went on to name names telling these Sunday times that it was actually the anti-fake history of Vivian Westwood who had used Harton in a way that didn't show the pain behind the history of it however this was not the only reason the name was decided the queen specifically chose the term Highland rape over the alternative name Highland fling as he knew that the term rape would provoke for some free PR but this was also influenced by the hope that this would promote an education to the English of this genocide which I checked was not part of our educational curriculum at the time and I still think isn't today unfortunately however this did not exactly translate to the reporters who seemingly did not know this history of Scotland and England despite the Queen's show notes including a passage explaining the historical references and so again accused him of misogyny and of glorifying rape and violence as a form of entertainment Outlet upon Outlet tried to discredit McQueen's creative ability because they didn't understand the history behind it their ignorance to British history affected their ability to informally critique McQueen's work and that infuriated the designer he was out of shock Shore but to completely misinterpret his intentions when the referencing was so on the nose and literally spelled out in the show notes he felt unintelligent and ill-informed something for which he was unfairly paying the price of after little of the collection was ever produced or sold and yet despite this miscommunication over the term rape and the inspirational material the furora around the show turned McQueen into a household name one recognized globally the level of Fame that came to Lee personally following this collection was so big that they knew this would impact everything going forward and so decided to change manufacturer to one that better fit their intricate needs they managed to sign a deal with the midst of issue owned bus stop in Japan to produce for the Asian market and launched a menswear line for said audience which officially launched with the following collections spring summer 96 known as the hunger which in turn made the hunger the first collection of leaves to put the company in the black following four hundred thousand pounds in orders across the world however despite all of this success Lee was facing the same issues as before he was being copied or interpreted by countless other designers while being regularly put down or ignored by the British press and frankly he had had enough Lee spurred on by his desire to be the best designer in history changed his Focus he buckled down tweaked the business hired his then intern Sarah Burton became stock by Liberty sack Fifth Avenue in birkdov Goodman downsized Isabella's role at the Alexander McQueen company though she did still stick to him like glue in a personal manner got bigger and better sponsorship in American Express Tanqueray Jin and backing with gebo who together saw his budget for shows triple to 30 000 pounds per collection and over the next two collections Dante which saw him get his first funding for a show in Sam gainsbury and Belmont Pepe which had the infamous slavery Scandal but was actually a critique of naziarianism he proved the press in England ignorant and neglectful of British talent while he literally took millions of pounds in orders outside the UK half of which from Japan and was even invited to reprise his work again in New York where Andre leontali and Anna Wintour viewed a show of his for the first time foreign was now an unquestionable Powerhouse in fashion and clearly very talented at getting the Public's attention this in turn caught the attention of lvmh Boss Bernard Arno who primarily heavily considered McQueen to be the successor to Uber Givenchy at Givenchy which though he did eventually opt for Galliano would eventually after Galliano moved to Dior and after many months of trying signed McQueen on to become the head designer of Givenchy Lee had no interest in this job his business was doing well he was one of the most famous designers in the world and he was already overworked so he simply didn't need it but after finding out that his increasing requests for a salary figure would be met he realized that he could use the agreed 450 000 pounds a year which adjusted for today would be about a million pounds to funnel money into his own company in fact lvmh did actually offer to buy the company outright but Lee saw the jobs as two separate entities and knew they weren't going to care about Alexander McQueen in the same way they cared about Dior or Louis Vuitton simply he didn't want his legacy bastardized in the way that it had been for Uber Givenchy so on this and every other subsequent offer for the next four and a half years he turned them down but despite this the budget jump at the Alexander McQueen label was blatantly obvious in his following collection automated 97 it's a jungle out there and the brand never really looked back each show got bigger and bigger with each passing season first the budget doubled to 70 000 pounds by spring summer 98 and eventually more than doubled again each show one after the other was a theatrical spectacular that perfected his idea of using showpieces to get attention which in turn could be used for marketing his more wearable clothes which were still expertly made all of this came to a head by number 13 spring summer 99 in which on top of Amy Mullins creating headlines for her intricately carved wooden legs Shalom Harlow closed the show in spectacular fashion as she stood on a revolving platform while being sprayed with black and acid green paint in a presentation that was emotionally raw and romantic in a way that crossed the line between fashion show and performance art number 13 was Lee's favorite show and the only one in his career that moved McQueen to tears the one McQueen some of the best reviews of his career and yet the momentum that he was on of these big show-stopping shows didn't in the slightest slow down and it became undeniable that he was now in the Golden Age of his design there was Overlook in ottoman to 99 I in spring summer 2000 that was his only show in New York an issue in Autumn winter 2000. McQueen had all but single-handedly saved London Fashion which now employed well over 300 000 people across the UK trebling in size in the six years McQueen was at his prime specifically though this figure is from just before spring summer 2000 I so it actually would have gone up from there in the six months between that and issue strangely though also in this time frame in April 2000 the queen approached Marianne Tesla president of Givenchy in the hopes of selling a portion of his business to lvmh but despite them regularly asking him to sell his business as a whole over the last four and a half years they actually turned his offer down leaving McQueen to take his business elsewhere but it's not like he didn't have options this period was one of transition in fashion as by the late 1990s fashion had changed dramatically lvmh had decimated the old-fashioned World by buying several fashion houses and redefining catwalks as promotional material to sell handbags shoes sunglasses and perfumes their profits were ridiculous and as such the rest of the Fashion World knew that they were in danger as a result several competitors popped up through mergers around this time but the important one to this story is the Gucci group that formed through a 42 sail to Pinot planton reduce or PPR in 1999. today this is known as caring then it was known as the Gucci group and they were having been merged with a mostly non-luxury company looking to expand their portfolio of high fashion brands Dominico de Soleil specifically co-headed the group along with Tom Ford had been given 2.5 billion dollars with which to acquire companies and unbeknownst to McQueen already had his eyes set on the Alexander McQueen company knowing full well the rumors that McQueen was being treated very badly at Givenchy and lvmh as luck would have it both men would meet in May 2000 about a month after the issue or to Winter 2000 show at a pool party hosted by Italian Vogue they didn't talk business that night but they did make sure to get a picture together to send to Bernard Arno as a way to tease an almost threaten him you see Gucci was a sore spot for Arno in particular after he had recently failed a hostile takeover at the company both McQueen and desole knew this and being that they both disliked Mr Arno bonded over the moment agreeing to meet at a later date in London to talk business in the meantime the McQueen brand expanded launching a denim collection named McQueen's a line of sunglasses in order to boost profits and upon the departure of Miguel ajova saw the promotion of Sarah Burton who would increasingly work on Collections and translate McQueen's Vision especially for his next show spring summer 01 Voss Voss was yet another absolute Smash Hit for the designer some even consider it to be his best show ever in fact both the clothes and theatrics complemented each other perfectly and it was a commercial Masterpiece after which andenyo longtime friend and photographer noted that around this time he had finally started to win over the Press who slowly reduced making vitriolic and quite personal attacks on Lee however despite hitting headlines across the world for the mirrored box reveal Lee personally had reached his emotional limit and was actively trying to get out of the industry he had spoken about this with friends including Nick Knight and the truth is that he could have taken a step back and distance himself from the unrelenting treadmill of producing collection after collection and yet now on the cusp of leaving fashion forever Isabella blow informed him that Tom Ford was ready to buy a stake in the business this completely changed his perspective as he knew that this sale would make his name Immortal something that he did care about and so jumped at the chance having had enough of lvmh's disrespect he called Tom Ford immediately from hearing this and set up an appointment with the Gucci group and while waiting for that date put in motion his exit strategy from shivanchi giving up his flight in the Murray and moving to a suite of the Four Seasons all of which was still paid for by shivanchi he eventually met with Ford at the ivy in London on the 2nd of December 2000 and after a while a figure of around 25 to 30 million dollars was agreed on for 51 of the Alexander McQueen company which was calculated at 2.5 times their annual revenue Gucci immediately set up a plan to open 10 Flagship stores 15 points of sale total burying McQueen's Name Across the world launched a range of perfumes accessories and several other spin-offs to create their desired McQueen Empire but there were two main problems the first was to get Lee McQueen out of the lvmh contract because it had a competitor clause and the second was that Lee didn't want that for his company he thought it was too fast and that it was unstable the second problem was easily solved Lee was probably right after all so they just focused on a slower growth plan but the first problem proved to be very tricky they started by hiring Betsy Pierce a no-nonsense American lawyer known for representing fashion designers to wiggle him out of the contract and luckily for Gucci Lee himself made the transition easier for he cared about nothing but his freedom he literally didn't care what it cost that's of course not to suggest it was in any way easy for Lee who had to remain silent had to keep this huge change very secret nor was it easy for lvmh who felt so blindsided by the move that they even famously refused to present his final Givenchy collection publicly and yet despite this arduous time the sale completed Lee was free from lvmh and a new era under the Gucci group began however in this new era Lee wasn't quite done with criticizing the fashion system that had caused him so much distress just yet using this ordeal and the concept of death of childhood dreams as the inspiration for his next show what a merry-go-round in Autumn winter01 which because of the times of the Gucci contract was his first show in Paris Lee really did not like Paris and as mentioned earlier his enthusiasm for the industry had begun to die so while everything was going exceptionally well for the company both creatively and commercially Gucci didn't seem to realize that Lee's entire Focus had changed from being the best designer to his partying his substance abuse and his life outside the company in fact Gucci increased plans for the brand to open 50 stores around this time which made Lee once again have to intervene to reduce that to less than half a dozen this change however was not a quick change by any means Alexander McQueen had become slick and corporate from the move to Gucci and they were finally a business built to last especially after they had failed going into the bespoke tailoring route with their Huntsman and Sons 2002 collaboration which saw them pivot to the traditional brand route by which I mean introducing Sure Fire cash cows like the 2003 skull scarf the 2005 Novak bag and the 2006 launch of his diffusion line McQ all of which helped him turn a profit for the first time in 2007 but eagle-eyed reporters began to notice how repetitive his collections had become how vast the gap between the catwalk and the retail offerings were and how overshadowed the clothes had become by the visual gags used at the show something Autumn went to o6 widows of Culloden especially was criticized for after the Pepper's ghost of Kate Moss was the only thing discussed four weeks after this of course wasn't for every show and frankly even with the best of his work McQueen always seemed to have some kind of criticism from somewhere so it had begun to feel like they had made a situation when no matter what they did or how successful the shows were critically or commercially someone would be dissatisfied all of which obviously fed into his ever increasing lack of interest in his business way around this time he wasn't even really designing that much he provided the inspiration and overarching imagery of the collection don't get me wrong but now it was mostly the design work of his team that was being shown and sold this really wouldn't change until Isabella blow who long ago McQueen had rather cruelly left in the dust committed her own unliving on the 7th of May 2007. McQueen quite obviously blamed himself for Isabella's death he knew that he had neglected her to the point of bullying starting all the way back with Dante when he downsized her role at the company and now with the knowledge that she removed him from her will shortly before herself analyzing her death really began to eat at him to combat this immeasurable guilt on the suggestion of his mother he took a trip to India and Bhutan to immerse himself into Buddhism to try to get his head straight it was during this trip that he realized if being a fashion designer is something he wants to do then he has to do it properly he has to stop squandering away his talent he returned to London newly refreshed and subsequently went into hyperdrive putting out a Renaissance of perfect collection after perfect collection he had Ladon Blue Spring Summer 08 dedicated to Isabella that was a hit the girl who lived in the tree Autumn winter08 that was a hit natural distinction and natural selection spring summer 09 that was a hit the Horn of Plenty ought to Winter 09 that was a Smash Hit and spring summer 10 Plato's Atlantis which was one of if not the best fashion show in history not just from McQueen the queen creatively was in a Renaissance he still didn't like the industry and was still getting those negative reviews pop up regardless of what Mastery he put out but these collections were the crowning Jewel of his career especially Plato's Atlantis which single-handedly popularized the idea of showing catwalk collections online after it was supposed to be live streamed on show Studio along with Lady Gaga's music video for Bad Romance though it actually wasn't according to this book because the Lady Gaga fans crashed the show Studio site and so it was just streamed later instead Plato's Atlantis is widely considered to be his greatest achievement a pinnacle of an incredible career in which he had revived London Fashion Week proved that avant-garde could be commercially viable and built his company to be the most creatively impactful fashion company in the world but behind the scenes he was still not doing well following Isabella's death the queen because of his personal depression would have lost all reason for living if he wasn't still holding on to life for his mother who herself was sick with cancer this even went to the extent that in mid-January 2010 he went to visit Robert polay then CEO of the Gucci group to hear their long-time sustainability plan for his brand to live forever he wanted to know what would happen in his absence now that his only reason for living was herself dying only a few weeks after this Joyce McQueen Lee's mother the Hyde on February 2nd 2010. Lee was crushed and her funeral was set for the 12th of February Lee returned to work on the 9th taking about a week to mourn and had dinner with his staff on the 10th at which he seemed Dapper but that evening he went home and committed his own unaliving in his London fight leaving a new will and a letter apologizing for his actions the company went into a state of mourning the stores removed everything from the front windows and officially announced that McQueen had died naturally the world was devastated fans left notes and bouquets outside the McQueen boutiques across the world and as London Fashion Week opened for the season they took a minute of Silence in tribute to him amongst the aftermath of his death the beauty group announced that the McQ diffusion line presentation would be canceled but that the main line would continue and was planning to show his unfinished final collection to several small groups of editors in Paris on March 9th and 10. this final collection was obviously a major success despite the only 16 finished pieces being shown but shortly after questions already had Arisen on how the company could possibly continue without this creative Talent eventually in May 2010 the Gucci group officially named Sarah Burton having worked with Lee for 14 years as creative director of Alexander McQueen and scheduled her first show spring summer 11 for later that year in Paris button kept almost everything the same internally the same head of Atelier Judith Lil who has been with the brand since 1997 and she continued to use Russian fit model Polina casino to Pat in her collection of a more accessible and wearable Alexander McQueen but her presentation was rather unlike Lee's which most put down to her gender having a different perspective but Sarah herself puts this more down to her perspective on design being adloosome or towards the light as a 180 degree turn from Lee's Macabre influence and she's right you can certainly see this in her first collection as you can with each collection following this but unfortunately regardless of how interesting the design was there was little chance of anyone heightening this spectacular presentations that Lima Queen had become infamous for and so many people felt the collections were lacking that certain je ne sais quoi however actually in hindsight it seems like perhaps this was planned I think it was in this book that they discussed very briefly how often in fashion they will produce an on-season meant for promotion and then an off-season meant for Commerce and that often this method is seen between head designers too as a way to encourage longevity for Brands so that the parent companies can get the most money out of it this is certainly a tried and true method in fashion and so it seems Sarah Burton was actually tasked with taking the brand into its commercial era as a conservation tactic and to be fair though so many people criticized her for it she did this exceptionally well with many hip products like these spring summer 11 bags and Boots the Autumn winter 11 shoes and the Autumn winter 12 belts sunglasses and boots but of course this spring 13 collection being her biggest hit and even being replaced recently for Beyonce's Renaissance tour however despite the plan working this way for many years now that the Gucci group is without their star once again following mckelley's departure Gucci and demna scandal at Balenciaga Sarah's work has begun to grow a cult following of its own for its exceptional tailoring and its consistency season after season originally I was going to say that this is still very much in the cold stage at this time but because the Gucci group is now ripe for a new star brand it seems plans have begun to turn McQueen into their next Big Brand evidenced at that point by the obvious marketing budget increases and the closure of McQ the diffusion line in June 2022 which would help position the Alexander McQueen Main Line in a more luxury positioning without a diffusion to water down the value it hadn't quite happened yet but it's undeniable that McQueen is in an early state of Revival too prominence once again and though this is still all true I then went on to predict that they would probably get rid of Sarah Burton in the midst of these changes it's not that she was unable to produce show-stopping shows she was a driving force behind Voss after all but to the public it's an easier transition to swallow if it comes with a new head designer or creative director I think this is probably best noticed when I ran the poll for this video's title and why so many said rise and fall because they thought Sarah didn't bring the drama as leaded which while these people were not wrong at all I'd wager that most people don't know just how much of the McQueen collections before he died were put together by Sarah Burton and how actually she has shown an ability to do both but because she was the head during their commercial era that's now how she is known to the public causing so many to think that she didn't bring the drama which in the middle of me editing this video caused her to get ousted when you know the history this seems unfair but when looking from a business perspective it makes sense consumers are often stubborn in their opinions and so trying to change opinion can be a particularly hard thing to do see Victoria's Secret or Michael Kors for good examples of exactly that so financially for caring it makes more sense to bring in a new designer to achieve their goal of revamping the brand that being said I'm so glad she has had this one final big collection for the company and that it has been so positively received she's always had an amazing talent in design and I do hope that she will be sorely missed McQueen believed in strong Unapologetic women and she channeled that into genuine commercial success for caring especially in the last couple of years of course we will all spend the next six months wondering who will take over and I'm interested in who you think too of course so please let me know in the comment section below thank you so much for watching make sure you like And subscribe for more videos like this one check out my beauty channel for more videos like this but about Beauty Brands and thank you especially to my patrons whose names are on the screen now if you would like to join them the patreon is linked below for perks like this and for Early Access to new videos [Music]

Channel: understitch,

Views: 165,537

Keywords: fashion marketing, fashion branding, fashion retailing, retail marketing, alexander mcqueen, lee mcqueen, isabella blow, sarah burton, ss24, spring 2024, paris fashion week, london fashion week

Id: m_aYH1XO90k

Length: 46min 5sec (2765 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 30 2023