Lee Alexander McQueen :: An Eerie, Angelic Departure

"Hells angels [sic] and prolific demons."

 -McQueen's Twitter post on February 11. 

Before he took his own life at just 40-years-young, British designer, Alexander McQueen, was a four-time recipient of the Fashion Designer of the Year Award. His haute couture creations littered the runways and permeated the Red Carpet as he became a world-wide phenomenon and an applauded name in the fashion world.

His death was announced just one month before the highly anticipated Paris Fashion Week. The news not only stunned the world, but it shocked the fashion industry to a raw, lifeless core as the busiest time of the year came to a jolting halt to briefly mourn the unexpected death of a legendary icon.

McQueen's final collection was revealed on Tuesday at Paris Fashion Week. The runway show was cancelled by the Gucci Company, and instead, an intimate group of respected professionals were invited to a private viewing. The mood was somber, as sorrow draped the crowd. Silence was shrouded with drops of tears while a salon of his last 16 masterpieces stand on display, each look hand-cut and hand draped onto dress forms by the late designer in the final weeks of his life. The models stood like statues, as lifeless as the mood.


The artistry and symbolism in McQueen's last collection was almost as though it was  deliberately designed to depict the transition from life to death. Religious aspects were incorporated into the fabrics including metallic brocades and prints with angels, angel wings, virgins, and doves. McQueen hand-sculpted angelic faces into the the heels of the shoes, while other details included organ pleats and elaborate gold embellishments which appeared to denote elements found in a church. His color choices included vast amounts of reds, golds and whites portraying a deeper voice of suggestive symbolism.


The collection, one could say, was revealed in progressive stages of transitioning to the afterlife as we see still-shots of angels, symbols of white doves perched on shoulders, and angel wings expanding from shoulder to shoulder. Then finally, the last look he would ever create is perhaps the most haunting. A body-hugging bodice covered in gold, gilded feathers that exposed a white tulle skirt with sprinkles of gold. Perhaps a depiction of a gold-feathered dove once trapped, now escaping, flying away to its afterlife...

Eerie? Yes. Spooky? Woman's Wear Daily would agree.The collection was certainly comprised of haunting expositions. Was McQueen incorporating visions of death into his designs? Was this all a plan? Did McQueen spend his final days designing a runway show of his funeral to freedom? We will never know. For me, the most empty question is how could this icon be living in such a deep and painful darkness, yet somehow manage to create the most beautiful collection we have ever seen him produce?


May McQueen Rest in Peace as his legend lives on.