Alexander McQueen's Rise From East London to Fashion God

The Taxi Driver's Son Who Broke Fashion

Lee Alexander McQueen was born March 17, 1969, to a taxi driver father and social science teacher mother in working-class Lewisham, East London. As the youngest of six children, he started making dresses for his three sisters and drew his first dress on the family home wall at age three.

At 16, McQueen dropped out of school with only one O-level in art and apprenticed at Savile Row's Anderson & Sheppard, then Gieves & Hawkes, mastering traditional tailoring techniques. He tailored suits for Mikhail Gorbachev and Prince Charles during his Savile Row years.

At 20, he worked for avant-garde Japanese designer Koji Tatsuno, then moved to Milan for Romeo Gigli before returning to London for Central Saint Martins.

The £5,000 Collection That Changed Everything

McQueen's 1992 graduation collection 'Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims' was bought entirely by fashion stylist Isabella Blow for £5,000. Blow convinced him to use his middle name Alexander professionally rather than Lee.

His first post-graduation collection 'Taxi Driver' (1993) introduced the infamous 'bumster' trousers, cut so low they revealed backside cleavage. This brought McQueen instant media recognition.

Between 1996-2003, he won British Designer of the Year four times. In 1996, just four years out of design school, he became chief designer at Givenchy, though he later admitted he 'treated Givenchy badly.'

The Hologram That Broke Fashion Week

McQueen's 2006 'Widows of Culloden' show concluded with Kate Moss dancing in a billowing white chiffon gown, projected life-size within a glass pyramid. The illusion used a 19th-century theatre technique called Pepper's Ghost, not actual hologram technology.

McQueen created the illusion as support for Moss during her drug scandal, seeking 'to show that she was more ethereal, bigger than the situation she was in.' The ethereal figure floated inside the giant pyramid, set to the soundtrack from Schindler's List.

In 2000, Gucci bought 51% of his company, providing capital for expansion. He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003.

The End at 40

McQueen died by suicide on February 11, 2010, at age 40 in his Mayfair home, shortly after his mother's death. His longtime collaborator Sarah Burton became creative director, later designing Kate Middleton's wedding dress.

The 2011 Metropolitan Museum retrospective 'Savage Beauty' broke attendance records and became one of the museum's most-visited shows.

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