An outfit from Highland Rape.
The biography of late fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen in McQueen (2018) speaks to one man’s obsession for telling stories, vignettes if you will, with fashion as a central element of that story. That obsession is perhaps not called out as such, but as we saw runway couture show after runway couture show, up to fourteen a year in his own words, it was clear that these were stories with subplots, each model striding down the catwalk embodying an element of the story McQueen strove to tell without words. An example was his Highland Rape show that drew on his Scottish heritage, speaking to the English invasion of Scotland and the butchery of the Highland Clans. This was not a show to attract consumers to any specific item of clothing; it was, at least as presented, an ephemeral memorial to the victims of a long-ago and savage war of conquest.
As his shows evolved, the traditional runway changed to support his evolving notions of narrative, a literal mutation of the medium itself, as he looked for ways to tell his stories more clearly. His presentations mirrored changes in his own life. Beginning as a lad from humble origins who happened to have a literal single-minded obsession with designing clothes, his obsession took him to the heights of Chief Designer at Givenchy and, later, Creative Director at Gucci. During the early parts of this journey, he appeared to be a humble, happy-go-lucky type, but as the pressures of his work molded him, his response wasn’t necessarily positive. The biography suggests he became somewhat abrasive and sometimes unwilling to share the results of his good fortune. Yet his team remained loyal, even during his unreasonable periods, suggesting that his personal genius and charisma remained constant.
But the curse of the truly single-minded is the instability of their lives; in McQueen’s case, possibly aggravated by sexual abuse when he was young. Such obsessions are often fueled by the positive feedback one receives, and I have to wonder if that blinded him to building the necessary supporting structure of his life. This is brought briefly into focus by McQueen himself in an informal interview, where he seems to express unease concerning his future, summoning the ennui many folks feel when it comes to understanding one’s place in the Universe. I know little of the fashion industry and how it affects those shooting stars working in it, but it strikes me that the end-point for a star designer within the industry is not necessarily a pleasant ending in a chair of dignified achievement. The essence of fashion, even for a trail-blazing story-teller such as McQueen, seems to be analogous to the old phrase Flavor Of The Month. Granted, he lasted nearly two decades, but the journey appears to have been draining, even if he was highly respected.
The difficulty of his journey was, indeed, exemplified by his death. It’s not enough to note that he died of suicide, for, in my view, absent an underlying biological terminal condition, that is in itself a positive act that requires explanation. The darkness at the end of his life began earlier, as one of his team confides to the audience that McQueen spoke of committing a very public suicide: at the end of one of his shows, he’d make the traditional appearance to acknowledge the applause, and the put a gun in his mouth and end it. This suggests a deadly entanglement with the possibly pathological elements of the industry.
But he did not go out an as an accusatory finger pointing at his industry, but silently and alone.
The first deadly blow was the death of his mentor, stylist Isabella Blow, who died of suicide motivated by terminal cancer. She had bought the entire collection he constructed for his graduation from fashion school and became an important influence in his life. Already profoundly shaken by her death, the death of his mother soon followed, causing his support structure to crumble. His family had always been important to him, always attending his shows; they, in turn, often provided snacks for cast and crew. That he and his family were close is not, I think, in doubt.
At this juncture, his story is obscure, as tales of sudden death often are. I speculate, coming from some analogous observations from within the previous generation of my family, that the death of his mother, for him, presaged the ultimate and inevitable dissolution of the family. That is, the structure in his life had crumbled, and that, in combination with some hints that his own health was unstable, may have given the less stable portions of his mind dominance and ultimately led to his own decision to take his life. It was a fast decision, for he was dead before his mother was buried.
This is a movie rife with beautiful images, yet many are internally contradictory. Throughout the film, we see the motif of a damaged skull, beautifully gilded with gold, often with something equally lovely associating with it, such as a butterfly. In current Western culture, the skull symbolizes death, while gold is commonly associated with wealth and all the positive facets that go with wealth. Photographed luminously, that skull dominates a movie about a a genius fashion designer who nearly always appears in the most informal of aspects: jeans and sneakers and shirt half-tucked, goofy grin and Cockney accent. Maybe the silent, withdrawn, stereotypical genius was there, but I didn’t see it; just looking at him, I’d expect maybe he drove a truck for a living, or worked at the gas station.
Appearance vs. reality; the meat of high fashion.
Don’t go to this expecting to see a complete biography, for this is a depiction of his stories and himself, and how they were at the core of himself. There’s little mention of any mundane consumer work he might have done, for instance, and I see in other sources that he was also an avid scuba diver, a fact not mentioned in this movie. I don’t know what else is omitted, but I suspect that it’s just as well. This is a biography about a story-teller telling his own story in the only way he knew how.
Recommended.
