McQueen started his career as a fashion designer at the age of 16, where he was taken on by Anderson & Sheppard tailors, where he then moved onto Gieves & Hawkes. After these experiences he then moved onto theatrical costume designers Angel & Bermans. He travelled to Milan to carry on his career before travelling back to London and applied as a pattern cutting tutor at Central Saint Martin’s, however the board of the university told him that with his background of work he should become a student. He then graduated with masters in fashion design; this gave him the stepping stone into Isabella Blow’s life, where she became somewhat of a mentor towards him. Blow bought the whole of his graduate collection, where every week he would come to hers with the clothes in a bin bag and McQueen would go with Blow to the cash point. (‘Jack the Ripper’ (Graduate collection)).
McQueen’s catwalk shows brought controversy and shock, this would partly be to do with the fact he worked with costume design, giving him that intellectual edge.
For example his s/s 2005 collection called ‘it’s only a game’, has a magical complexity to it, the model seems to weave in and out of each other on the catwalk and end up in rows of suited women, Latin Americans, Red hairs, Americans, Japanese etc. I feel this paragraph I found explaining the concept of the season’s catwalk shows it to its full potential.
Using a futuristic chess game as mise en scene, McQueen this time offers up an intricately worked and determinedly youthful collection featuring pieces that whisper of fashion fantasy although always with a typically tough edge. And so a floral print, primrose yellow baby doll dress is finished with signature leather harnessing, for example, amply demonstrating the play between power and vulnerability that the designer has by now made his own. The starting point is filmic again. This time clothes are inspired by Picnic At Hanging Rock - quintessential McQueen territory given its ultra-feminine and innocent spirit undermined by a significantly dark undercurrent. Everything from Edwardian children’s wear to embroidered fairground horses makes an appearance. The chessboard motif allows the designer to explore different types of women – Americans face Japanese on the board, redheads are placed opposite Latin Americans and so forth. .Text SourceHere is the first part to the catwalk show.
And here is the second part.
Unfortunately on February tenth McQueen committed suicide and was found the next day hung in his wardrobe by his house keeper, an ambulance was called to the scene but he was declared dead at the scene. However his name and image still lives on.
