Documentary on Alexander McQueen

Lee Alexander McQueen was very close to his mother Joyce

On the plane back to Hong Kong I saw a documentary on the late British fashion designer Alexander McQueen.

Called McQueen, the documentary gathers shaky video footage the designer took himself, along with interviews with his family, friends, and assistants. It gives a fuller picture of the man who shook up the fashion world with his designs and explains how he evolved from a young man who loved drawing all the time in school, to apprenticing with top tailors in Savile Row.



There he learned the craft of making suits and his former bosses were impressed he would come into work with no attitude, and do his work very well. He later worked for other designers and learned how to come up with a theme, do research, and create a collection.

He went back to school this time, straight into the MA fashion course for Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. He didn't have the money to pay for tuition, but his aunt did.

McQueen had creative fashion ideas in his head

His graduation collection was bought by fashion stylist Isabella Blow who became his patron and mentor, buying his creations and also introducing him to fashion circles. The documentary has footage of them at her home that had a huge estate, him playing with his dogs there and she in high heels and a military-style jacket.

Then starting out, his fashion shows were criticized for being misogynist with themes like Highland Rape and Jack the Ripper. One of his friends recounts how they got into the Givenchy show and dismissed it as "irrelevant" and then ironically he was later named creative director there.

McQueen takes a video of them pulling up to Givenchy in a chauffered car and how there were language barriers with him not speaking French, the staff working at the atelier not much English. They were terrified whenever he got his scissors out because he would just chop things up, but after they saw what he had done to resolve the problem, they understood what he was doing.

He also had lunch with the staff, which was unheard of before, and they were thrilled he respected them. McQueen later did a stint at Gucci.

McQueen was mentored by Isabella Blow

His assistant observes that when McQueen began making so much money, he got into drugs, which changed his personality. He also became more vain, doing liposuction, caving into the shallow physical expectations of the fashion industry.

But his depression hit hard, when Blow committed suicide in 2007 at 48. Some say it was because she and McQueen drifted apart, with him not appreciating her, though he denied this. There is footage of him going to the funeral in a black jacket and red tartan looking distressed.

However creatively he got better and better, exploring themes of death and beauty. Models and his friends say McQueen was always true to himself and didn't care what others thought of what he was doing.

McQueen was very close to his mother, the youngest of six children. She gives a few interviews about him, saying how he was very talented and he was a good boy. But when she died in February 2010, McQueen was devastated.

He spoke to his older sister on the phone about their mother's funeral, but then the day of the funeral she found out McQueen had killed himself by hanging. A former assistant ominously recounts how McQueen had talked about suicide, and how he would probably leave his flat in a body bag. His sister believes he could not deal with his mother not being around anymore.

A model's dress is being painted by two robots

That's when the documentary ends, giving a post script about how his posthumous show "Savage Beauty" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was the most popular ever in the New York museum. That's when I came into contact with his work and was in awe of his creativity. Everything was possible and he was not afraid to try.

The interviews with the friends and family show how much he impacted them, from berating an assistant for leaving him and then coming back, to his nephew so proud of McQueen and what he did, to his sister describing a skirt he made for her that fit like a glove but was almost impossible to walk in.