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If Alexander McQueen were to give a masterclass on design, creativity and attitude, what wisdom would he impart? Discover McQueen’s life, work and legacy in this sharply curated biography focusing on artistic spirit.
Alexander McQueen will go down in history as the most talented and enigmatic ‘bad boy’ of fashion. But it was his drive and visionary perspective that secured his place in sartorial legend when his defying couture looks sent shockwaves through the fashion landscape.
But how did he think? And how was his attitude reflected in his work? What Alexander McQueen Can Teach You About Fashion breaks down McQueen’s life and work into memorable maxims – including Don’t be Scared of Fear, Challenge Gender, Add Volume, then More Volume and Show Skin. This book uncovers McQueen’s creative flair, his inspirations, his business acumen and the details that make his designs so arresting.
With pithy, thoughtful text and inspirational photographs, learn something from McQueen and apply it to your own life, creativity and style. These are the things that really define what it means to be McQueen.
Small and beautifully formed – if you like this, What Coco Chanel Can Teach You About Fashion is also available.
From the Publisher
THE LOOKS
Forbidden Florals
‘Things rot …,’ McQueen said when explaining his choice to intersperse fresh cut flowers with silk ones for a dress in his 2007 Spring-Summer show. ‘I used flowers because they die.’
For McQueen, a perennially twee motif in English textile history carried his signature brand of poignant morbidity. With origins in Asia, floral lace and embroidery gained significance in fifteenth-century European fashion and later dominated English interior textiles thanks to William Morris. Floral fabrics conceptually captured flowers’ fleeting, fragile beauty. Wearers benefited from the association with flowers that lasted forever. This was a look that McQueen harnessed as a surprising signature.
Roses were McQueen’s favourite flower. In 1997, he presented a second-skin black leather dress laser-cut with rose patterns across the model’s pelvis. Embroidered burlap, in 1999, created the look of a rough, base, common sack made magnificent by the ornate roses stitched into its scratchy surface.
The juxtaposition of a historically valueless fabric with precious handicraft and a romantic motif demonstrated McQueen’s unique gift for elevating everyday reality.
Be an Alchemist Challenge Gender Get Engaged Burn your Idols Practice Dark Arts Stay Centred Seek the Animal Within Make Waves
THE INSPIRATION
Always Listen to Mother
Joyce was more than Alexander McQueen’s mother. She was his soulmate, guide and muse. When McQueen was a child, she taught him the intricacies of his family’s fraught and complex history. When writing his biography of the designer, Andrew Wilson described McQueen listening to Joyce’s stories of ‘violence, poverty and fragmentation, a triumvirate that continued to shape the family for the next couple of centuries’ and hearing evidence of resilience and rebellion. Murder and tragedy were common themes in McQueen’s legacy, threaded from Scotland to London. Joyce, a social science teacher who taught genealogy, was born in Hackney but traced her roots to the Huguenots of Spitalfields. McQueen’s identity was intensely connected to his ancestry and family history, which he learned through his mother.
When McQueen was a child, his father, Ronald, was institutionalized. While Joyce was, in practice, a single parent, she lavished her son with love and attention. Their bond was tight and especially profound. McQueen credits his mother with his original move towards fashion. She saw a report on television about a shortage of tailors at Saville Row and encouraged McQueen to apply.
The stories of poverty and horror, especially regarding the proximity of the family home to the territory where Jack the Ripper prowled, the notorious Victorian serial killer who Joyce told her son about would influence his creative imagination throughout his career. McQueen’s work was always fresh and contemporary, because of, not despite, a fixation with the past and his own history.
Know your History Find the Devil in Details Show Skin Find Kindred Spirits Forge Tight Bonds Don’t be Scared of Fear Capture the Spirit of the Times Find Beauty in Art
THE DETAILS
Use your Head
Among the most iconic items of the noughties, McQueen’s scarves, rings and other accessories drew upon various artistic and cultural traditions, from the seventeenth-century European memento mori to the Mexican calavera, to bring an awareness of life’s transience into mainstream fashion.
McQueen used knuckle dusters adorned with heavy metal-style skulls as handles for brightly coloured fabric, animal skin and hard-shelled clutches. With jewelled eyes and baroque settings, the power of McQueen’s clutches is in their contradictions. The juxtaposition of the assertive handles, with their rough subcultural implications and opulent materials, created mystique. The bags’ hardedged intensity was heightened by the dark humour of the skulls. They were pretty but the skulls demonstrated the willingness of the wearers to go to dark places. The bags prove Marilyn Manson’s adage right: ‘If you act like a rock star, you’ll be treated like one’.
Similarly, the simplified skulls that float on McQueen’s scarves and seem to be smiling knowingly hark back to the Mexican folk art tradition celebrating Día de los Muertos or the Day of the Dead.
The tradition, known as calavera, dates back to the fifteenth century and includes calaveras de azúcar, decorative sugar skulls. With glittering smiles and joyful colours, these sugar skulls represent rebirth rather than grief. Made from pressed and painted sugar, they are ephemeral and sweet but resilient.
Find Strength in Fragility Give it a Soft Touch Go Wild Find a Second Skin Love Roses and their Thorns Add Volume, then More Volume Go on Red Alert Stitch it Up
ASIN : B08SBSSF3R
Publisher : White Lion Publishing (November 23, 2021)
Publication date : November 23, 2021
Language : English
File size : 7466 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 168 pages
