By Natalie Harewood

I remember seeing my first Alexander McQueen show back in 2002. It opened with a model wearing a lilac hooded cape and thigh high lace-up leather boots, escorted by none other than a pack of wolves. Yes, you read that correctly…wolves. At a fashion show. I instantly fell in love. Not because I wanted to run out and cop a pair of purple shoes, but because I knew I was witnessing someone with the audacity to push the proverbial envelope in a way that could shake up the world of fashion like that no one else could.

My love affair with Alexander McQueen continued for many more seasons. There were models walking the runway encased in glass, with live butterflies fluttering about. And human scale chess boards. And mirrored cubes designed to look like a hospital psych ward. Oh, and I can’t forget the red and black, Pagan-themed show in Paris. It is impossible to have just one favorite McQueen moment.

But for a man with so much innovation, Alexander McQueen was a rude and tortured soul; the designer that people loved to hate. McQueen’s work extended beyond the conventional realm of fashion. It was psychological, offensive, and intriguing. McQueen managed to both embrace and shun popular culture simultaneously; a feat many have attempted, but have been unable to execute.

We can also blame/praise McQueen for ushering in the gothic-chic look to the masses. Remember all of those skulls and crossbones that were everywhere a few seasons ago? Yea, that was McQueen. Irony at its finest, for in recent years, he was growing increasingly more frustrated with the state of commercial fashion, which caused him to skew towards the darker side of the industry.

Of course, the more he shifted away from the mainstream, the more mainstream embraced him. Worn by a who’s who of Hollywood – Rihanna, Gwen Stefani and Lady Gaga are a short list of his devoted fans – McQueen’s popularity skyrocketed, thrusting him into the limelight of the Parisian couture fashion scene. Wearing Alexander McQueen became a badge of honor, and the Hollywood elite couldn’t get enough of him. McQueen was the great genius of his generation in British fashion. He was, like most compelling and intriguing people, a complex and contradictory character.

The Lewis Carroll of fashion, McQueen constructed a wonderland of garments with flawless tailoring and unconventional silhouettes that enchanted, haunted, and captivated his audience; all while never forgetting what his purpose was: to create impeccable works of art. 

Sometimes when you’re faster than the world, it’s a lonely place. Being so far ahead of the curve leaves you peerless. You desperately depend on the people behind your walls. The ones you trust as your tether to the “real world.” When he lost his mother recently, perhaps he also lost his grip on this reality and felt truly alone. It’s a cruel and brutal irony that McQueen’s bleeding edge genius, so often used to keep people at bay drew so many people to take a look at the wall, but never accounted for letting them in to his world. In the world of image we take what you give us and  McQueen gave a reality that was far-reaching, deliciously ambitious, and maddeningly riveting. Even when you were put off you had no choice but to sit and be mesmerized. Let that stand as his epitaph. May he find the peace that eluded him on Earth.

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