and headed straight for Savile Row to begin an apprenticeship with numerous tailors, where he cemented his reputation for making impeccably tailored suits.

After a brief spell in Italy working for Romeo Gigli, McQueen applied to Central St Martins College of Art and Design to work as a tutor in pattern cutting. However, on the advice of Bobby Hillson, the head of the masters course, McQueen instead became a student of the college, graduating with a masters degree in fashion design and selling his entire graduation collection to influential fashion stylist Isabella Blow.

On February 12, 2010 during a colourful career through which he was plagued by depression and drug overdoses, he hung himself in his London home.

But why was this sought-after designer’s suicide such a huge loss to the fashion world?…

McQueen’s Career

Words such as “unconventional”, “rebellious”, “shocking”, and “innovative,” are often used to describe McQueen’s collections and the way in which they were launched.

One of his earliest and most dramatic catwalk shows, titled VOSS, featured an enormous glass box, which mirrored everyone in the brightly-lit auditorium due to the interior of the box remaining dark. Said McQueen of his production: “Ha! I was really pleased about that. I was looking at it on the monitor, watching everyone trying not to look at themselves.

It was a great thing to do in the fashion industry—turn it back on them!” Finally when the show began, the lights came on inside the box, revealing a naked model on a chaise longue Wearing a gas mask as butterflies fluttered around her, The glass walls then fell away, smashing on the floor. Nick Knight, a British fashion photographer who had been sitting in the front row next to Gwyneth Paltrow and British Vogue editor Alexander Schuillman, said it was, “probably one of the best pieces of Fashion Theatre I have ever witnessed,”

with collections such as Highland Rape, a “dark and tortured” show depicting events in Scottish history; his 1998 Givenchy show Where double amputee model Aimee Mullins opened the show, kitted out with a pair of hand-carved wooden legs made from solid ash; his Autumn 2006 show “Widows of Culleden,” in which he used a hologram of Kate Moss dressed in yards of rippling fabric and Spring 2010’s Plato’s Atlantis, a collection inspired by his passion for scuba diving.

He was the first designer to use Indian models. He was also the ran responsible for those world-renowned (and widely criticized) low-rise “bumster” jeans. He was the first to work with MAC who released a series of cosmetics created by fashion designers – his range inspired by the 1963 Elizabeth Taylor movie, Cleopatra for which his models wore heavy, Egyptian-style make-up in blue, green and teal colours and heavy black eye-liner.

By the end of 2007 McQueen had boutiques in London, New York, Los Angeles, Milan, and Las Vegas as well as a stunning number of awards and accolades including four Best British Designer of the Year awards (between 1996 and 2003) and a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire).

McQueen’s Death

Following his suicide, just a few days after his mother had passed away from cancer, McQueen’s final, unfinished Autumn/Winter collection, consisting of 16 pieces, was revealed during Paris fashion week in March of 2010. Fashion editors described his show as being “hard to watch” as it was heavily influenced by McQueen’s obsession with death and the afterlife.

Shulman said his work “influenced a Whole generation of designers,” and, on his death, she stated on Vogue’s website: “His brilliant imagination knew no bounds as he conjured up collection after collection of extraordinary designs. At one level he was a master of the fantastic, creating astounding fashion shows that mixed design, technology and performance, and on another he was a modern day genius whose gothic aesthetic was adopted by women the world over. His death is the hugest loss to anyone who knew him and for very many who didn’t.” Similarly, model Naomi Campbell said she was “truly devastated” by McQueen’s death.

McQueen’s Legacy

Despite his death, the Alexander McQueen empire lives on, largely due to the work of his long-term assistant Sarah Burton. Burton started working for McQueen as an intern in 1996 and went on to become his personal assistant upon her graduation in 1997. In 2000 she became head of Womenswear, creating dresses for the likes of Michelle Obama, Guyneth Paltrow and, most famously, Catherine Middleton’s wedding dress, Pippa Middleton’s maid-of-honour dress and Kate’s post-wedding dress for her wedding to Prince William, Duke of Cambridge in 2011. Burton has since been included in Time’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

McQueen 2015

In 2011 New York’s The Metropolitan Museum of Art held a posthumous exhibition of his work, titled Savage Beauty. The exhibition lasted for three months and was so critically acclaimed that McQueen’s fans and industry peers set up a petition on Change.org to “Please Make Alexander McQueen’s Savage Beauty a Traveling Exhibition,” in order to share the designer’s vision with the world. The exhibition had been the most successful one in the museum’s history, thus the petition was granted. It’s currently showing at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum until July 19 of this year.

This year, on the fifth anniversary of his death, it was revealed that a play titled McQueen would be staged at St James Theatre in London. Written by James Phillips and directed by John Caird, the story follows a girl who has been watching McQueen’s Mayfair house and decides to make a name for herself by breaking in and stealing a dress. McQueen catches her but, rather than calling the police, they “embark together on a journey through London and into his heart.” McQueen’s sister Janet described the play as ‘true to his spirit’. McQueen will run from May 9 until June 6.