Word: mcqueens
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...short career, McQueen was named British Designer of the Year four times and Designer of the Year in the U.S. once, and was working as creative director for Givenchy when he was very publicly poached by Tom Ford to do the same for Gucci. His label was making inroads in the U.S. market, and he recently launched the slightly cheaper McQ and went into partnership with Target. Last year he became the first major designer to do a live webcast of his show. Everything suggested he was a man who had hit his stride...
...youngest of six children from London's East End, Lee McQueen, as he was known to friends and family, famously dropped out of school at 16 to become an apprentice on Savile Row. He worked for a few designers before applying to teach at London's prestigious Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design. He didn't get the job, but he was offered a coveted space in the graduate program. In 1992, by then discovered and championed by Blow, he started his own line upon graduation. (See pictures of models falling down...
Either innately or through study, McQueen understood that he was a story: working-class wonder boy, hooligan of haute couture, aesthetic thug. He seemed to enjoy scandalizing journalists - telling them he didn't care for their publication, showing them artwork of something repellent, talking like a longshoreman (he used to scrawl obscenities underneath the linings of coats he made), badmouthing his bosses. The loutishness made his talent seem purer and rawer and more exciting...
...McQueen's clothes were as profanely original as his language. Most famous for his bumster pants, which took low-rise jeans to a whole new low, he combined a gothic, almost romantic sensibility with a robust dose of street attitude. He was a master cutter, structuring garments to change the shape of the body, accentuating what he found sexiest. "There are very few real designers who have a craft, which is to say a sense of cut, proportion and tailoring," fellow British designer Paul Smith said in 2001. "Alexander...
...knew how to put on a show. In one, he sprayed models with paint as they walked; in another, he had them in rings of fire; in another, they were blood-spattered. Wild makeup and hair are runway standards, but McQueen put his models in those lobster-claw shoes Lady Gaga favors, as well as antlers. He gave his shows ribald names and once sent down a completely naked model carrying a transparent box of moths - which was then shattered, releasing the panicking winged insects. He mooned the audience and went out in a bunny suit (although...