Alexander McQueen Special

Friday 20.00

The tragic death of Lee Alexander McQueen shook the world of fashion to its core, and daily tributes to his accomplishments are still written today. Fashion journalist and TV host Jeanne Beker is one of the few who had the privilege to intimately follow his' evolving into one of fashion's most recognized designers and in the Fashion Television special The Incredible Life And Tragic Death Of Alexander McQueen, she shares memorable moments.

BLOG: MCQUEEN MOMENTS
Fashion professionals share their most memorable McQueen moments in a mini blog during a week that ends with Friday’s Alexander McQueen
special on Star!

2010.04.16 | Marcella Mravec, Fashion Editor at Metro, about the wish for an unlikely wedding dress



When we were little, me and my sister used to play fashion. We draped ourselves in sheer fabrics, cut leg-warmers into pieces and put on our skinny arms. Then we stood on my sister's bed (I don't even think we bothered to make it before), and imagined a fashion shoot.
 
Fashion was already magical to me by then. But it wasn't until a few years later, when Alexander McQueen put Shalom Harlow in a white dress, letting two robot arms spray her with colour, that it all fell into place, strange as it may sound.
 
It is a fashion moment which I still go on YouTube to find, and which I still fantasize about: in my dream wedding I walk down the aisle wearing that exact dress, lead by two robots.

2010.04.15 | Jonna Berg Wahlström, Chief Editor at Glamour, on a magic Youtube moment telling of McQeen’s humanness



You’d guess it would Bruce Springsteen performing “Thunder road” at Hammersmith Odeon 1975 that is my most frequently-clicked-link on Youtube. Or maybe the “West wing”-episode where Dire Straits’ “Brother in arms” is featured. But, it’s not. “My” Youtube-moment is actually signed the great Alexander McQueen. Mostly because of it’s beauty and spookyness, but also because of it’s hopefulness.

The year is 2006 and Kate Moss is the World’s Worst Woman. Her cocaine habit has been cabled out to the world, and media and (major) part of the fashionbiz is raging. She’s losing several of her contracts and the world is turning their back on her.

But at the end of the Alexander McQueen fall 2006 show, inside an empty glass pyramid, a puff of white smoke appears and slowly evolves into a hologram of a woman in a flowing white dress. Soon you realise it’s Kate Moss.

She’s twisting and dancing for a moment, and it’s so amazing and beautiful – fragile, pale and, yet, very real. And then she’s gone. I think there was more than one that saw that and thought of how bad it feels to judge a person.

After that, Kate got her contracts back. Actually, she got even more of them than she had before. I think what Alexander McQueen did was something really human and very cool.

2010.04.14 | Model Elsa Sylvan about working with Lee Alexander McQueen
(Elsa was one of the models walking the Alexander McQueen S/S 2010 show in Paris, the last one with the designer present)



"I have always been more of a theatre girl than a fashion victim, and so when I was introduced to the world of fashion everything was new. And Alexander McQueen, for me, was just one in a bunch of designer names. But it just took one season of fashion shows for my creative ego to realize he was one of the designers I simply CRAVED to work with."

Elsa rode her bike back and forward to the shabby, rough looking McQueen atelier on Rue Lisbonne (“In there its a show itself, fabrics all over and seamstresses on stools and tables constantly on the go, fabric colouring in the toilet”, she tells us). And after walking and walking in those shoes in front of Lee and the whole team, knowing so many other models had fallen on their bum, Elsa got confirmed.

"My inner theatre buff went for an adrenaline ride, I was so excited!" For Elsa, McQueen had become more than a name, or another prestigious show.

"It was more than a fashion show, even more than stage art, to me it was like he was Platon showing me a world beyond fashion, beyond reality."

And everyone seemed to feel it. Hair and make up artists were sweating for hours before the show, there were no chitchatting between the strokes of the brushes. Everyone was so involved in the creation of his fantasy.

"Even the models tied up and near to fainting felt privileged and devoted to complete and be part of this illusion of his", says Elsa.

Elsa describes Alexander, or Lee as you would address him, as the one probably working hardest. He was running around the place, correcting little details, always asking if the models were all right, helping with a smile. The impression was that he was an incredibly humble person, though you could sense that he always was in a world of his own.

"His face was kind, but never present. He was inside his vision, and for me the amazing thing was not simply that I managed NOT to fall in those crazy heels - you would have to redefine the definition of walking after that though - but that I was invited into his creative world.

To me, Alexander McQueen will never be replaced and there will always be emptiness where trips to his surreal world used to be."

2010.04.13 | Silje Pedersen, Fashion Editor at minMote, about receiving the news between the shows at Copenhagen Fashion Week.

I can still remember the sadness as we heard of the death of one of the world’s most gifted designers, Alexander McQueen. I was sitting with a colleague at Copenhagen Fashion Week, blogging and twittering when we read the news. McQueens creations always amazed and seemed to be of another world, eternal, fantasy or ethereal. His designs, shows and collections always told such a great and inspirational story.

I must say that his last spring collection, forever will be printed in my mind as one of his personal best. Platos Atlantis, the ecological meltdown of the world as we know it, was an inspirational and intriguing show to watch. I also remember fondly the fall collection of 2006 were he use the hologram of Kate Moss, as a very special and moving experience.

McQueen will be missed. He brought us drama and extravaganza in a world of fashion and fantasy.

2010.04.09 | Daniel Björk, fashion journalist, about the McQueen dress that forever changed his view on fashion.



My first and strongest memory of Alexander McQueen was when I saw one of his dresses in real life at the Kulturhuset in Stockholm. It was a brown leather dress with laser cut outs and I was completely floored. Before that moment I had only been interested in fashion and liked it – now I loved it, because that dress made me see how fashion can be so much more than just beautiful clothes.

It was such an emotional experience and it made me think of how people described the experience of attending an Yves Saint Laurnet fashion show in the 70s. I don't think any other contemporary designer has been able to move me like that.