McQueen was born in Lewisham on 17th March 1969 and died in Mayfair on February 11th 2010 aged 40. He committed suicide after an amazing life of creativity and cutting edge design. His mother had recently died and he was very saddened at her loss.
He was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001 and founded his own fashion label. He was British Designer of the year in 1996, 1997, 2001 and 2003 and international designer of the year in 2003. Despite his success, he was a troubled man with drug misuse and sexual diversity issues.
McQueen served as an apprentice in Savile Row learning the art of pattern cutting and tailoring both with top tailoring companies and then to creating theatrical costumes with Angels and Bermans. It is said that the skills that he learnt in tailoring enabled him to create and then deconstruct and reconstruct fashion and accessories in a new and exciting way.
I chose Alexander (Lee) McQueen as one of my designer influences because he was so original. Like Vivienne Westwood but much more, in my opinion, talented and creative. He push the boundaries of what can be used to create fabric and clothing, albeit not particularly useful for daily wear for ordinary people, but exciting and innovative. I have visited the 2015 'Savage Beauty' exhibition at the V&A three times and intend to go at least twice more before the show ends on August 8th. I will be very sad when it finishes.
His work makes me gasp at it's 'difference' and outside the box thinking. I hope that some rubs off when I go to the exhibition! My first sight of his 'box of curiosities' made me very emotional and when I took a friend as a guest, I made her close her eyes and let me lead her into the room and open her eyes again to experience the room as I had, utter amazement. Unfortunately, I lent my book on McQueen to the same friend and she has gone on holiday, so I have had to use the internet and some magazines for my photos of his work.
McQueen breaks boundaries at all levels! Design, materials and innovative ideas. He was a tailor but must have used free machining in his work.
Alexander (Lee) McQueen 1969-2010
McQueen used conventional fabrics, fur, shells, feathers, metals, bone, wood and so many more elements in his work. He was at the cutting edge of using digital imagery to create his fabrics, most recently in his 'Plato's Atlantis' show.
It is from this show, that I have chosen my sample to make. For the 'Plato's Atlantis' catwalk collection, McQueen designed his Armadillo boots. Impossible to walk in, Naomi Campbell apparently fell when walking in them; photos of the show, shows the models wearing them on the catwalk.
Plato's Atlantis catwalk show
Details of the Armadillo boots
Other images of McQueen's work
Feather dress
Goose feathers painted gold and structured to a jacket
Pheasant feather structured into a dress
McQueen's work is many things to many people; representational, symbolic and allegorical. His Widows of Culloden show represents the Highland clearances and reflects on his Scottish background. He was interested in uniforms and introduced braids and structure of military elements into his work. He used nature in his creations, feathers and shells used to construct clothing. Religion also influenced him as he used iconography in his designs.
McQueen was interested in ornithology and many of his designs include nests, birds and feathers.
His use of colour varies according to the themes he is creating. Wonderful tartans were designed, in fact he made the 'McQueen' tartan for the Culloden show. He rethinks ethnicity, taking national dress like kimonos and 'westernising' them whilst keeping the feel of the original.
The line texture and forms vary throughout his amazing range of work but his tailoring always shows through as the structures are always immaculate and there is, although they are strange and avant garde, no feeling of dis-structure as with punk and Westwood design whose backgrounds McQueen has come from and with.
The message that McQueen's work gives to me, perhaps not others, is that everything is possible; only lack of imagination can stop you; break boundaries; creativity is endless. He achieved this by imagining a huge range of creative themes, that make you gasp at the variety and innovation.
His use of stitch incorporates classical tailoring, embroidery on dresses and stitched structures that are so complex, it is difficult to understand their structure - and you can't touch them or photograph/sketch them.
I have become fairly obsessed by McQueen's work and from such a huge range of possibilities had a problem working out what I could possibly do to show a sample of his work. I don't have an industrial machine but nevertheless, I thought that I could make an 'Armadillo' boot from fabric.
I haven't seen a boot made from feathers, so I thought that I would try and made something that represented his boots in fabric feathers. I drew the outline of the shape of a boot and cut it out in mouldable felt as a base for the feathers.
Using my iPad software, I sketched a pheasant breast feather
My sketch
I then transferred the drawing to my laptop and in photo software, made a contact sheet of feathers and printed that on paper.
Sketch, source image and printed contact sheet
More contact sheets were printed and cut and stuck to get a more dense page of feathers.
Canvas feathers
The rows of feathers were cut and the lower edge of the feathers cut out so that I had rows to stitch and overlap on the felt base. There was too much white exposed, so I painted over the edges of each feather, there were hundreds, to eliminate the white.
Painting the feathers and bases or rows - this took a while.
The feathers stitched in overlapping rows to the felt
Now I understood why they were called 'Armadillo' although I have no idea how they were originally constructed! I used clips to hold the edges in with fabric glue.
The front edge of the shoe seam was machine stitched and I used what I have seen cobblers doing, I used two hand needles and threads to stitch down the back seam with a button thread. As I had used mouldable felt, I dampened the piece to be able to turn it once the seams were made.
In the construction, I ran out of canvas and I needed to print more feathers. Unfortunately the print was slightly different in colour and so on one side of the boot, there is a colour variation which disappointed me, but I focused and reminded myself that this is a sample and that I should carry on.
The sole and heel and the base of the shoe are all made from mouldable felt and stitched or glued, or both to hold the piece together.
The completed boot.
Then, as I was so annoyed about the colour variation and because I felt that this was not particularly stitch oriented, I made another boot, this time printing using a tan coloured paper, onto which I printed all the feathers from the original paper copy onto printable silk and then stitched the rows of feathers with an outline of an automatic design in gold thread. A 'zip' was stitched using an automatic satin stitch and another automatic design to denote the teeth of the zip, between the lines of satin stitch
The boot was constructed in a similar manner to the canvas sample, although this time, I could machine most of the work, the fabric being thinner and less stressful on my machine. The silk was less robust than the canvas, so I left the print backing attached on the inside of the fabric. To make the boot more stable in the upright position, it is weighted with tiny metal balls and stuffed with toy stuffing to give it shape that is achieved in the other sample by the weight of the canvas.
The finished silk 'Armadillo' boot
I know that this was a completely mad undertaking, but I have really enjoyed making these boots. I would love to have had made a larger piece of clothing as a homage to McQueen, but realise that this is not the time to do that. Perhaps later.
I am still deciding who will be my third choice of designer. I am torn between two. Either Alysn Midgelow-Martin or Lindsey Taylor.
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