Designers: Long live McQueen.

Three years ago today I heard probably one of the most shocking news of my short life. Alexander McQueen had passed.



I still remember, the first time I bought VOGUE Mexico, was in the summer of 2008, I was about to start fashion school that next fall, I barely knew about fashion back then, but I enjoyed VOGUE as much as I did Alternative Press, I remember walking home with breakfast in one hand and VOGUE Mexico on the other, on a Saturday morning, I had just graduated high school the night before.

I got home that day and started flipping through the pages and I came across this tiny picture of Alexander McQueen's fall 2008 collection, and I remember sitting there, thinking, who is this lad? He is pretty amazing, I think I like this Alexander McQueen. And that was it for me, I fell in love with his work, every single part of his æsthetics, from the hair, the make up, not to talk about the garments that, at the risk of sounding cliché, to me are a work of art, shoes, oh my goodness, it was so much to take in at the time for my fashion wise pristine mind. And I fell hard for him, like an infantuated tween with the trendy actor or singer. That's how hard it hit me.

Then came that 2009 Spring collection, and I wasn't the only one who had drank the McQ. Love potion, he was all over the place. We were all on the ninth fashion cloud, someone had finally brought freshness to the fashion world, and then, we all felt how hard and cold concrete on our backs can be.

It's been three years since he left us craving for more, and it still hurts, the fashion and art worlds will forever mourn the loss of one of its geniuses, a man that allowed me (us) to dream, that came to change the world of couture, that gave me hope and showed the world that the grotesque can be beautiful, alluring and enchanting and speak to the human soul.

McQueen allowed me to dream because he helped me reconcile two concepts that had been haunting my mind from an early age, beauty and the grotesque, ugly, disgusting. Good and bad. White and black. Light and darkness. Clean and dirty. He helped me realize there's not a 'right way' and helped me acknowledge that there was a place for everyone in fashion, and for once in my life I knew there was nothing wrong with finding bruised skin or blood stains intriguing and beautiful, and at the same time finding beauty in something as canon as an October sunset in my hometown. And I think that's why women all over the world loved him, he let them feel empowered, no matter how they looked, he brought that rebellion that all of us have, that was missing in fashion since I'd dare say Vivienne Westwood. He allowed us to destroy in order to create. He let us know it was ok to do so.

To me, there's nothing that brings a greater æsthetic pleasure than this, the mayhem of destroying something beautiful in order to make it more alluring, decadent, but delightful in its own special way.

“From heaven to hell and back again, life is a funny thing. Beauty can come from the most strangest of places, even the most disgusting places.”
— Alexander McQueen

May he rest in peace.

Xoxo
E.