![Alexander McQueen S/S 2008, LA DAME BLEUE dedicated to Isabella Blow
“[Lee’s] a wild bird with a good silhouette, and he always makes…his whole work is about being—is a bird. So birds have movement, they have freedom, they’re wild, they’re free, they don’t have to be responsible to anyone other than to their great technical ability to fly. I think he makes clothes fly.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/6825d571d326c0909552180830aedda6/tumblr_mjfg0w0dmA1qbgebwo1_500.gif)
Alexander McQueen S/S 2008, LA DAME BLEUE dedicated to Isabella Blow
“[Lee’s] a wild bird with a good silhouette, and he always makes…his whole work is about being—is a bird. So birds have movement, they have freedom, they’re wild, they’re free, they don’t have to be responsible to anyone other than to their great technical ability to fly. I think he makes clothes fly.”
I watched the Masters of Style episode on McQueen which aired in 2003, and then the McQueen and I documentary that chronicled Lee McQueen and Isabella Blow’s symbiotic friendship, and I still constantly find myself so saddened by McQueen’s loneliness and the legendary work that he’s left behind. His clothes were designed and tailored with his soul and imagination, and his shows were theatrical and political, and I honestly can’t say enough how much I revere that about his work, and his ability to refuse the status quo and to demolish the notion of the fashion industry. He thought fashion was trivial. He wasn’t sure if it was what he wanted to pursue for the rest of his life despite it being his greatest talent. Most of all, he wanted to infuse a new art into what fashion could mean to the world. Underneath the brazen armour of his fashion was a sensitive man who loved his mother and cared dearly for his muse, Isabella Blow. Maybe muse is the wrong word because they nurtured each other equally. Sometimes he’d cry when critics didn’t understand his work. Everything he did was much more personal than anyone could ever understand. Like many fastidious mavericks, he came from nothing and persevered until he gained a wealth of respect. Plato’s Atlantis, every time I peruse those pieces, it remains indescribable. There are pieces in his archive that are breathtaking, stunning, and absolutely hard to stop looking at, but his final collection is truly a vision of the future that I’ve yet to find anything else comparable to. I know that’s putting a single collection on a high pedestal but I can’t help but understand the enigma of Plato’s Atlantis and how every part of its performance still inspires me today.
Sometimes I think all he needed was a friend. Someone to love him and he deserved that more than anything else in the world. Everyone deserves that. I will always love and remember his work. The fashion of his love.
Alexander McQueen RTW Fall 2013
I’m sad that there were only ten looks, but I’m happy for Burton, who’s pregnant with twins! It wasn’t her best collection (and not nearly close to achieving McQueen’s sartorial and creative direction), because it felt like costume design more than anything, but I loved the contrast of black and white and all of the meticulousness with the pearls and diamonds. I think Burton always brings a particular femininity to her designs and implements only tinges of dark, sex appeal (like in this collection with the black leather, the metallics, the gloves), as where McQueen was much more about redefining the silhouette of the women in every way and was never predominantly feminine or masculine. I’m not sure how to articulate it, but there is most certainly a shift in Burton’s work and McQueen’s, and sometimes it makes me miss McQueen. A lot.
Alexander McQueen f/w 2013
