After a tv documentary, a filmed stage play and a cancelled biopic, Alexander McQueen got the big-screen documentary he deserved in the darkly beautiful McQUEEN.
His life is told in five chapters named after signature collections that redefined couture fashion and courted controversy from a salivating media.
They chart the growing inbalance for him: the more success he had with his own label - and being appointed Head Designer for Givenchy then Creative Director for Gucci - increased his stress of designing 14 collections a year, which led to increased drug use and the loss of his core group.
The biggest break was with fashion stylist Isabella Blow who had promoted him from his student days but when her hopes of ruling Givency with him did not appear, mistrust set in. Her suicide in 2007 shook him and when his beloved mum died in 2010, he commited suicide eight days later.
Shelf or charity shop? Definite shelf. Bonhôte and Ettedgui use McQueen's skull logo as chapter titles in different styles that echo his collections and create a beautiful, haunting look to the already-marvellous creations on show. It reminds me of AMY, as there is so much source material of not only McQueen in interview and in his studio but of course his gloriously theatrical shows. The directors are lucky to have Lee's older sister Janet and her son Gary to put his family life in context and such witnesses as Isabella's husband Detmar Blow, and McQueen fashion collaborators Jodie Kidd, Michelle Olley, Sebastian Pons, Joseph Bennett and Mira Chai-Hyde. Oddly, there is no mention of George Forsyth who he unofficially married in 2000. But McQUEEN remains an achingly sad tribute to a genuine original.
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