Alexander McQueen: A Tribute

I am sorry to admit that last night I heard about Alexander McQueen's death through a Facebook status update, from a self-described fashion Luddite, no less. After a quick Google search I learned that the designer took his own life which deeply saddened - but did not shock - me. McQueen has consistently been one of my favorite designers for many years (I even designed a mock McQueen brand identity for a logo design assignment in college). I didn't adore everything he designed (rib cage suitcase for Samsonite, anyone?), but I loved his many creations for the same reason I love Frida Kahlo's paintings: I simply can't stop looking at them. His type of artistic brilliance, unfortunately, tends to come at a price.

The thing I find most disheartening, however, is the callous manner in which people treat a death such as this. Browsing Facebook for a few minutes, I saw several insensitive comments regarding McQueen's death and McQueen himself. (Though to be fair, the poster of the original status update was respectful.) Apparently, never having heard of someone, coupled with the fact that that someone is in fashion, gives you the right to be flippant.

McQueen was a significant player in an an industry many people view as frivolous, but as a multi-billion dollar industry that has an enormous impact on our economy, how frivolous is it really? As Miranda Priestly so eloquently put it in The Devil Wears Prada, the influence of fashion is more pervasive than you think, and no one is immune to it:

This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? ... And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.

So, you see, McQueen may have been one of "those" fashion people, but it doesn't make his death and the circumstances surrounding it any less tragic. May he rest in peace.