There has been no mincing – words or otherwise – about Alexander McQueen. Ever since he stepped onto the scene, he jolted the fashion audience out of their seats, set tremors in global trends, created sensational runway moments, challenged aesthetic perceptions, dramatised his disturbing and somewhat morbid themes. He came, saw and conquered. Then left without saying goodbye, in his trademark, abrupt, hard-hitting style. Poetically tragic; we are still reeling.

It is always doubly shocking when someone dies in their prime, and McQueen was right there! This millennium saw him rise, rise and rise. He had become a global force and a prime influencer of trends, especially over the past few years, that witnessed the emergence of extreme assertive dressing, which was the essence of his label. Critical acclaim had already been received (occasional brickbat included), commercial success had already been tasted, the ‘alternative-cool’ quotient is still running strong. Mainstream celebrities with a glamorously ‘radical’ image (Rihanna, Lady Gaga and gang) have been (and still are) swearing by his clothes and are being emulated all across the planet, making him a household name. This – right now – is his time for dominance. Was.

There are designers who create eternally beautiful pieces with classic aesthetics. There are those who make statements – non-conformist, anti-establishment, avant garde – and get noticed. And there are some who identify with the times that they live in. This has been a decade of terror attacks, bomb blasts, of living in fear and dread. McQueen’s timing was serendipitous. He emerged in the 9/11 aftermath, warred with the neo-hippy and then announced “Boho is dead and that’s a fact”. Well, he did have a hand at slaying it, armed with precision menswear tailoring experiences from his Savile Row days (he left school at age 16 and took up a job with Anderson & Sheppard, then with Gieves & Hawkes), a Master’s degree in womenswear from Central Saint Martin’s in London, the enviable patronage of British fashion royalty Isabella Blow (who supported him since his graduation collection) and four years of pent-up energy from half-heartedly leading Givenchy (1997-2001; he once even admitted that a particular collection was “crap”), before finally venturing onto the battlefield on his own.

Ever since, the world has gotten darker and more menacing; we all try to envision a sheltering cocoon to retreat into. In an interview with The Times, London, in 2004, McQueen said, “I try to protect people. A lot of my clothes are hard-edged…like armour.” Structured, stiff and moulded have been distinctive traits of his style, but McQueen notched up assertive to intimidating. Gothic sensibilities started getting stronger; his themes got more twisted with a sense of impending doom – a controversial interpretation of a political situation (Highland Rape), or an old thriller (Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock), the creepiness of Alfred Hitchcock’s films and art by Joel-Peter Witkin, who has ‘worked’ with unclaimed corpses at morgues.

Shock tactics have dutifully accomodated sex, lest it felt left out. The Goth-bondage leather under-bust corsets, dangerously low ‘bumster’ trousers (from his Givenchy days), see-through tops and dresses, second-skin latex and leather aside, gasp-worthy moments over the years have included a show invite displaying an image titled Woman Masturbating on the Moon, a nude woman wearing a gas mask, surrounded by hundreds of moths; inspired by Witkin’s art again, a video showing a woman copulating with a snake to produce reptilian-human offspring, giant red lips on his models – a scarier representation of inflatable sex dolls and 12-inches high stiletto boots that created a furore regarding how McQueen ‘hates women’. McQueen’s brand of sex was so overt and bizarre, that it sometimes evoked more fear than desire.

But intimidation alone does not hold for long; it has to be empowered by beauty of great magnitude. And character. Beyond the styling and the odd costume, have been some marvellous works of apparel engineering – intricately seamed, greatly detailed, flawlessly finished. The corset, the fitted trouser, the cinched waist jacket and the 1940s New Look skirt have emerged in many McQueen collections – results of his tailoring background and homages to Dior, YSL and friend Isabella Blow, who passed away in 2007. Inspirations varied; Victorian, military, sportswear, sci-fi, manga – all were pitstops in his sartorial route. McQueen explored a variety of fabrics, drapes (not Grecian goddess but stiffer, swirling pleats and rolls) and more recently, digital prints – flaming Phoenix plumes (SS 2008), kaleidoscopic bursts combined with animal textures (SS 2009), houndstooth patterns converting into flying ravens (AW 2009), paintbrush splatters and strokes (Resort 2009) and iridescent marble wash reptile skin effects (SS 2010).

To anyone who has observed the evolution of McQueen’s work, there have been noticeable periodic shifts. Experiments have yielded some excellence, some good stuff, some bad – peaks and troughs galore. But stagnation and jadedness? No. Just when we would think that he was getting set at a ‘genre’, he would move away from that perceived cushy zone, deliberately attempting to avoid déjà vu (though Goth crept up sooner or later). This is why in just about a decade, McQueen built up an immense variety of archives, along with prêt brand McQ and collaborations with luggage giant Samsonite (those famous skeleton shell suitcases) and sports company Puma. And countless awards, including four British Fashion Designer of the Year between 1996 and 2003. In the designer fraternity, he was revered competition to the biggies, co-radical to the radicals, inspiration to those outside the fashion Meccas (including many of our Indian creators), overly adulated riff-raff to the established classicists and a blasphemy to Puritans.

Interestingly, in this last phase, McQueen seemed to have been turning environmentalist, as his last two Spring Summer collections indicated. Again, the timing was uncanny, with the world being rudely and forcibly slapped out of its ostrich state. There has not been much time to decide whether this was a deliberate cashing-in of the moment or a genuine turn of ideology. We would have had to wait and watch.

The inimitable Karl Lagerfeld commented on McQueen’s work, post the tragedy, “There was always an attraction to death, it was a bit dehumanised…. Who knows, perhaps by constantly flirting with death, death ends up attracting you.”
Creepy? Bizarre? Alexander probably would have liked it.

Subscribe to Verve Magazine or buy the Verve issue on stands now!