Long live Alexander McQueen: the designer's friends pay tribute as London gears up for Savage Beauty at V&A

As London gears up for a landmark exhibition to celebrate the life of Alexander McQueen Karen Dacre hears from the designer’s friends about the city that shaped him
Creative genius: Alexander McQueen (right) and his designs
Camera Press/ FirstVIEW

The exhibition, a broadened version of the retrospective that thrilled New York in 2011, has brought with it umpteen book titles (some worth reading) as commentators attempt to get a handle on the man behind the mania.

In its purest sense this is a homecoming. Four years after his tragic death, it’s Lee McQueen — son of an East End cabbie — returning to the city that he loved. Combining the designer’s chilling taste for macabre with the shock-and-awe tactics that defined his iconic fashion shows, the exhibition spans McQueen’s graduate collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims, through his infamous Highland Rape collection of 1995, inspired by his Scottish ancestry right up to his final collection, which was completed by McQueen’s successor Sarah Burton in the weeks that followed his suicide.

Arguably, it is the sense of London at work within the retrospective that will make it compelling viewing for residents of the capital. A celebration of our status as an incubator for extraordinary talent, the V&A’s version of Savage Beauty includes 30 new London-centric additions, donated by McQueen’s contemporaries including stylist Katy England and Kate Moss.

Gowns from the personal collection of the late fashion doyenne Isabella Blow, McQueen's most passionate mentor, will also appear and the displays have undergone a redesign by London set designer Sam Gainsbury as Creative Director and Joseph Bennett as Production Designer, with both of whom McQueen frequently collaborated.

A Stepney boy who came to Savile Row via pre-Olympics Stratford, London was in McQueen’s blood. Whilst studying at Central Saint Martins, McQueen set up home with his best friend in Tooting Bec — a place with a back garden big enough to use for splattering textiles with latex. From there, he found himself in Dagenham, where he lived with his sister, and then in Clerkenwell, where the Alexander McQueen head office continues to operate with Burton at the helm.

McQueen, who began his career as a tailor and staged a catwalk show inside a mirrored make-shift mental asylum, was inspired by what lurked in the shadows of the city. It is here that Lee Alexander McQueen was born, here that he created his magic and here that Savage Beauty makes the sweetest sort of sense. We ask some of those who knew McQueen best to remember the London legend.

The life of Alexander McQueen - in pictures

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Simon Ungless

Executive director of Academy of Art University’s School of Fashion and McQueen’s best friend

Our time as flatmates in Tooting inspires my most poignant memories of Lee. It was a time when we were free to create on very limited funds and without a specific end product in mind. My fondest memory is spending our days swimming at Tooting Bec Lido and our nights making fabrics and clothes. I don’t know what’s in the show but if there is anything we worked on together it will mean the most. The early tailored pieces indicated what was to come.

Susannah Frankel

Fashion critic and fashion director of Grazia

Islington reminds me of Lee, I think. From 1996 to 1999 I was fashion editor of The Guardian and in the late Nineties Lee lived round there, and his studio and the McQueen offices were around the corner. When things got a bit much at work, I’d hang out there with Lee and all the brilliant women he always had around him: Janet Fischgrund, Amie Witton, Katy England, Sam Gainsbury, Trino Verkade, Sidonie Barton and Sarah Burton, of course. We had time to talk and make jokes and at the same time that office was generating such brilliant fashion and ideas. I also remember driving around London with Lee, which is quite funny because he never actually had a licence. He used to laugh at me because that made me nervous. It’s often assumed that Lee was always fêted and famous but, especially early on, before he signed the deal with Gucci, he was more infamous and people were often critical of his work. He really minded about that, particularly if it was a journalist he cared about. His shows were so personal, so about what he was thinking or feeling at any given time, so if somebody reacted badly to them that felt very personal too. However upset he was by negative reviews, though, he always, always stood by his work and never compromised his vision. More personally, I’m not sure people realise how funny he was. He was side-splittingly funny and we laughed and laughed together, often until we cried.

Savage Beauty is Lee’s legacy and, as such, it is all very meaningful and I’m so happy it’s happened. If I had to choose one element I think it would probably be the early work in London just because we were all so excited by everything. It made almost everything else that was going on at the time seem so prissy and boring by comparison.

A work of art: McQueen's armadillo boots from Plato’s Atlantis (Picture:
Victoria and Albert Museum

Guido Palau

Hair stylist

It has to be the East End of London. We had so many fun times there and it was a place where Lee felt very comfortable. It was his home and he kind of introduced me to “his manor”. Lee was very shy, sensitive, cheeky, a loyal friend and colleague.

What I love most about the exhibition is that it really evokes Lee’s spirit. I think people will be blown away by the breadth of his artistry, technical skill and imagination. I think the public will really get a sense of him even if they didn’t know who he was. Every artistic element of the exhibition was made with him in mind. When I was designing the masks I really reflected on what Lee had shown me and what he loved about his sometimes strange take on beauty. I really tried to portray Lee’s aesthetic and he was always in my thoughts when I was creating them.

Shaun Leane

Jewellery designer

Lee was a genius. His thought process was so unique; you had to work with him for years to understand it. Once you were on his wavelength, that was when beauty was created. He had a memory second to none; he would pull to the forefront of his mind inspirations he had seen several years before. His drive to create his vision was uncompromising —he taught me and often quoted that “nothing is impossible”. He had a team of people for every element of the collection, he was the composer. He had the vision and knew how to challenge, excite and inspire us all to create the best that we possibly could.

It was a very emotional experience for me to see all of our creations again in one space [at the Met in NY]; it was like looking at the history of my career. The memories attached to each of these individual pieces are like landmarks of my friendship with Lee and the different stages of my development as a designer and craftsman. There is an overwhelming feeling of pride and gratefulness to have been able to create this body of work and to have shared a creative platform with such a genius and kind man like Lee.

Nadja Swarovski

Member of the Swarovski executive board

Our offices are right next to Savile Row, and the location is a great reminder of the importance of the tailoring skills that allowed him to create such a strong vision. Lee was an East End boy who began his career as a tailor’s apprentice on “the Row”, and this really shows in the precise and considered cut of his women’s suits. But it was his talent, drive and limitless imagination that created such magic on the catwalk and allowed him to build a global luxury house. The fact that Sarah Burton has been able to carry things on so well is testament both to the team he created around him and the clarity of his creative vision.

Lee was really an artist and fashion was his medium. He had a passion for experimenting with new materials and ideas, and when he first visited our headquarters in Austria to see our product ranges, he was like a child in a sweet shop. He said he didn’t just want to use all our colours and cuts, he wanted to work with us to invent something new. Whatever we gave him he would use it in the most creative, energetic and surprising way, resulting in the most inspirational designs. He was one of the first designers to use our new crystal mesh fabric, creating a Hooded Mesh Top for his No 13 show (spring/summer 1999) which he paired with a long white sheer skirt. After that we couldn’t produce enough — everybody wanted to use it.

Of course we’re very proud of all the 30 or so Swarovski crystal-embellished pieces in the V&A show. But for me, one of the key exhibits is the Bird’s Nest Head-dress from his seminal Widows of Culloden show. McQueen worked with Philip Treacy and Shaun Leane on the piece, which is composed of dramatic wings and a hand-woven silver nest, embellished with pavé-set eggs. The combination of Lee’s concept, Swarovski gemstones, and Shaun and Philip’s craftsmanship resulted in a stunning showpiece.

A tartan dress from Alexander McQueen 2006-7 at Paris Fashion Week (Picture: FirstVIEW)
FirstVIEW

Claire Wilcox

Curator of V&A exhibition and senior curator of fashion at the V&A

I will never forget walking through the corridors of the V&A with Lee and seeing how he absorbed everything that was around him. He went very quiet until we got to the Victorian Cast Courts. Then he stopped and said: “This is the kind of place I’d like to be locked in overnight.”

Lee was extremely knowledgeable about fashion history and in particular, about 19th-century tailoring. He used to visit the archives regularly with Sarah Burton. He had a natural facility for understanding cloth, cut and construction and he applied that knowledge to his collections. There was not a single collection that didn’t have a reference to tailoring.

What means the most to me is that the V&A is hosting this show and that it’s taking place in London. I associate McQueen with London: with its streets, with its history, with its museums, with its clubs. I think he felt rooted in the city. It’s an extraordinary privilege to be bringing this show home.

Jonathan Akeroyd

CEO and president of Alexander McQueen

The pieces from It’s Only a Game [McQueen’s spring/summer 2005 collection] will always be my favourite since it was the first show I experienced when I joined. Not only was the collection incredible and very well received, the finale at the end really showed a true genius’s mind at work. While Lee will always be remembered for being a creative genius, he actually also had a great head for business and was always in touch with what was going on in the company, suggesting initiatives that no one else would have thought of.

Exmouth Market will always be the place that reminds me of Lee. Our office was close by and Moro and the Quality Chop House would be his restaurants of choice.

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty runs from March 14–August 2 (vam.ac.uk/savagebeauty)

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