All language subtitles for McQueen.2018.NORDiC.1080p.WEB-DL.X264 - SWESUBS

Hussy all right?

Sminky Pinky.

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Maids? All right.

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There's lots of people
in the industry who say,

"I discovered
Alexander McQueen."

But you don't discover talent.
Talent's there.

You open doors for talent,
you push it through,

or you help it along.

No one discovered
Alexander McQueen.

Alexander McQueen
discovered himself.

Lee had this very strange CV.

I wasn't very good at school.

I was always drawing
clothes in every lesson...

in science, in biology, and...

But I used to enjoy art most.

When he left school, he wasn't
sure what he wanted to do.

He was out of work, looking
for work, I should say,

because my husband's very strict

on the children
going out to work.

Lee was watching a television
program one evening,

and they was saying that they
couldn't get apprentices

to work in Savile Row,

so I just said to him, "Why
don't you go and try?"

Said, "You just
knock on the door."

They can only either say
yes or no, you know."

And that's exactly what he done.

Anderson and Sheppard
started in 1906.

We liked to do things slightly
different to other people.

We have our house style, and that's what
we're gonna teach the apprentices to make.

I was taught by a master tailor
from County Cork in Ireland.

He was the best tailor we had
working on the premises.

The first year, you start off padding
collars, putting in pockets...

but you're expected to make a
full jacket ready for fitting

by the end of the first year.

As soon as you put it on,

it should fit like a glove,

and you know it's made for you.

I knew I couldn't survive
in a place like that

for the rest of my life,
cluttered in a small workshop,

sitting on a bench
padding lapels.

But I did have a passion,
and I was good at it.

I was good at
tailoring a jacket.

I was quick at learning

and quick at learning trousers.

I wanted to learn everything.

Give me everything.

It was beginning of '90s

when I had a bespoke tailoring
shop in Mount Street,

and he just walked in one day.

He looked like skinheads,

but just told me he
can cut frock coat

much better than
50-years-old tailor I had.

So I was very curious
and just told him,

"Okay. Show me what you can do."

I never really made clothes
in a traditional way.

I was experimenting myself

in how to create
structure and volumes.

I began to just take in
material, any material,

and by putting
them all together,

somehow you can start to
create three-dimensional form.

Lee wanted to understand

why I'm doing this
way or that way.

When Lee was 17, he said,

"I'll make you a
couple of skirts,"

and I've got to say,
they fit like a glove.

They were so fitted to my body.

I couldn't even move
my legs hardly,

but I used to get
compliments on this skirt.

I did used to wonder,

"I hope he finds the right
thing for himself in life."

He was a sweet boy from the
East End looking to make money.

We needed technical help. Machinists.
We needed pattern cutters.

We needed people who had
hands-on experience

in making clothes.

Gave me no attitude.
Was never late.

Always knew what he was doing.
Always delivered.

He listened continually
to Sinead O'Connor,

which was quite odd, because no one
else liked Sinead O'Connor at the time.

He really liked her,
for some reason.

I always remember him
with his Walkman on,

listening to Sinead O'Connor.

Three, two, one. Ignition.

Liftoff.

Red or Dead was this very
young street-wear company.

When I said to him that the
Space Baby collection...

was based on the anniversary

of the men landing on the
moon, he was like, "What?"

He didn't know you could
take a subject that

had no relation to clothing

and actually get inspiration
from that to design clothing.

So he didn't understand this
idea of visual research

or historic references
or sexual references.

- We copy you on the ground.
- - The eagle has landed.

He must have asked me questions.

"What can I do next? How can
I push myself forward?"

And at the time,

all the designers in Italy
were opening diffusion lines.

He went to Italy
with no language,

no place to stay, no
money, no qualifications.

I thought within a week,
he'll be back, you know,

with his tail between his legs.

A week later, maybe ten days, I
get a call from Lee from Italy.

He'd landed a job as an
assistant for Romeo Gigli.

To say I was shocked
was an understatement.

I say, "Okay, I'm looking
for new jacket."

I have my mind this shape,

but my tailor, they
cannot read that shape.

"Maybe you can
help me to do it."

And we start to do that jacket,
and we did the first fitting.

I say, "No, it's wrong."

That is not what
I'm looking for."

So with the tailor, with
Lee, they did one more.

We did the second fitting,

and again, I take
out the lining,

looking inside the jacket,
and it was wrong.

Third fitting, I say,
"No, is incorrect."

And I take out the lining,
and inside the jacket,

they wrote with a black
pen, "Fuck you, Romeo."

That was the time when I was
looking for new shapes...

For shapes, for shapes...

and he was looking
so deeply and hard.

He was really deeply looking
to understand everything.

He was leaving my studio

because he want to study
more and more and more.

You can't teach talent,
but what you can do

is make them better at what
they do or more professional.

And to me, the whole
thinking behind this MA

was to make them work in teams,

working together as you
do in the fashion world.

I saw this unprepossessing,
I must say...

very shabby, very
unattractive...

I hate to be... say this,

but it was true... boy

with a bundle of
clothes over his arm

outside my office.

I said to him, "Who
are you looking for?"

And he said, "I've
come to see you."

But I had no job, which
he said he was after.

The whole thing intrigued me.
He was passionate.

And to me, this is
the secret, really,

if you tap into that.

I found myself saying,

"I think you should
come on my course,"

and I couldn't offer him
money, that was really sad,

and it was patently
obvious he had none.

Aunt Renee said she had money
in the bank sitting there,

not doing anything, and she
would rather help Lee.

She'd worked in the rag trade.
She knew that Lee had talent.

And he came back and said,

"My aunt is going
to pay the fees,

and I'm coming."

Saint Martins was
the place to go,

but what I liked about it was
the freedom of expression

and the being surrounded
by like-minded people.

I think we got on really well because
we had the same sense of humor.

And he laughed all the time,

so he was just funny
and disrespectful,

and he'd do catwalk shows
down the corridor.

He'd just muck around.

Whenever he could muck
around, he'd muck around.

I was actually teaching
there at the time as well,

and he was not frightened
to tell people,

"I know better than
you," even the tutors.

He was a bit of a nightmare
student because he knew so much.

I'm sure he was a pain and
did interrupt people.

He didn't actually
dare interrupt me.

But he used it. He used it
as I intended him to use it,

and he'd come to a
painting or a book,

and, you know, not having
had a formal education,

it was all new to him.

And that was it.

He reinterpreted
things in his way.

It wasn't filtered
through, with a lot of us

who had more conventional
backgrounds.

I loved that.

He knew where to
go for everything.

London was his town.

"And where do I get
my button holes?"

He'd go, "You want to
go to Marten in Soho."

If you want fabric, then you want to go
to Berwick Street, Shepherd's Bush."

He would take me to gay bars,

and he would take me to lesbian
bars, and he'd like sit me down,

he'd go, "This is
what you want."

I go, "No, I really
just want to go home."

Can I just go home
and do my homework?"

The course always ended
with the degree show.

No other college

had ever been invited, as I was, to
show during British Fashion Week.

He called me when he was nearly
finishing the final collection

and asked me to come in

to have a look at it and
talk to him about it.

It had all the elements.

It had the history of the East End.
It had the darkness.

"Jack The Ripper
Stalks His Victims."

It had the research.

It had a really great
story behind it.

He was reading books
like Perfume,

which is all about
the murder of women,

and he had a very dark
side to him as well,

so he was drawing from
all of these influences

and then creating something
very beautiful out of it.

The pieces went past me,

and they moved in a
way I've never seen.

I wanted them. They were modern.
They were classical.

He would do a black coat,

and then he'd line
it with human hair,

and it was blood-red inside,
so it was like a body.

It was like the
flesh with blood.

And I just thought,

"This is the most beautiful
thing I've ever seen."

It was about sabotage
and tradition,

which is the perfect
combination,

and beauty, violence.

All the things that I
suppose the '90s represent.

How difficult is it
to discover genius?

Not at all difficult, 'cause
they have it, and I spot it.

If you're interested
in the history

of late 20-century clothes,

Isabella Blow is a big player.

I was at American Vogue,

and Anna Wintour sort
of discovered me,

and I worked for her.

Then I went to British Vogue.

McQueen was her knight,

and she was gonna
take him to the top.

She was determined.

I knew. I rang up his
mother and said,

"You've produced a genius."

I think he's like the Saint
Laurent of the year 2000.

And his mother said to him

that there's this mad woman
who keeps trying to call us.

I don't know. She wants
some of your clothes.

I rang between six and
eight times a day.

Finally, I got a little voice on
the end of the line. "Hello?"

So I said, "Yes. Can I come
make an appointment with you?"

My name's Isabella Blow."

I don't know to this day
if he knew who I was.

No. I just wanted the money.
I was desperate for money.

I wasn't interested in him, either.
I just wanted the clothes.

I didn't give her no money off.

I said, "That's 350, love. You
can take it or leave it."

And, uh, she loved that.

It wasn't until I went to the Bluebird
Garage collection that he did

that I just thought,
"What have I unleashed?"

And he walked across, said,
"I owe it all to you,"

which I thought was
very, very sweet,

because it was far from true.

He'd worked every inch
of the way himself.

Every fashion designer wants
to create an illusion,

create things that
disturb, fascinate people.

Clothes are really
beautiful to work with,

but there's also a
reality outside.

Some people don't
want to hear it.

It's all lovey-dovey,

and everything's fine in
the world all the time,

and I tell it the way it is.

In the '90s, you used to
make clothes to go out,

and you used to make something
just for that night.

You're going to this nightclub,
this person is on or that DJ.

Right. What are we going to do?

I think Lee took everything.

That's one of Lee's strengths,

that he took a lot of
Bowery's esthetic...

it's transgressive,
it's in your face

and thought, "How does this
translate onto a runway?"

Lee also used that
language of fetish

in terms of rubber and
latex and leather...

and put it into his
fashion design.

We started going out
with each other,

but part of me was thinking,

"But also, it's quite useful

'cause I can sew as well."

It was literally
anyone that could sew,

and it didn't matter whether they were
any good particularly at sewing or not.

Were they willing to come
and sit in the studio

for 16 hours a day,

and were they going to be
good fun to be around.

Lee that was the badly
behaved, naughty school boy

that was always doing pranks
on people in the pub,

and that's the person
that I liked, loved.

At the time I first met Lee, I
was living in Hoxton Square,

and one day, in pops this guy,

and I kind of figured he
had rented the downstairs.

"Come in for a cup of tea."

And he asked what I did.

I said, "I do grooming for
men, hair and makeup."

And he goes, "I'm
having a show soon.

Would you do the hair and
makeup for the guys?"

I was like, "Don't you need to
see some of my work first?"

I'd never done a show before, so... he's
like, "No, I can tell. I can tell."

He said to me one day, "I've
decided to do my own collection."

And I remember thinking,
"How on earth does he think

he's gonna have a business
and make a collection?"

He has got nothing.

He's got no money,
no wherewithal,

no studio, nobody to support
him, nothing behind him.

And yet he was determined this
was what he was gonna do.

I survived on
unemployment benefit,

and I bought all my fabric...

I bought all my fabrics
with my dole money.

And I went round to my
parents for baked beans

and tins of soup
and things like...

This is my pooch.

He said to me, "I really
need to get a logo."

We asked my boyfriend at the
time if he would design it.

It was my idea to put
the "C" inside the "Q,"

but then Dave designed
the rest of it.

He was fantastic at getting people to
do a phenomenal amount of work for him,

and we were never, ever paid.

In fact, we were paying
him to work for him.

How amazing is that?

Just to be part of it,

be part of his vision, yeah.

He had that, even from the
very beginning, that pull.

- Warhol.
- Woo!

Yeah.

Dance for me.

Come on, keep it going.

Isabella was very keen
to call him Alexander,

just because she thought it
sounded better as a designer.

Sounded grander and
more romantic.

Issie got criticized for
trying to make him posh.

So what? Good for Issie.

She was trying to
make him successful.

And she did. Alexander
McQueen is a brand.

Why do you love
her so much, Lee?

She's the same as me. She doesn't care.
She doesn't care what people think.

At the end of the day, we're...

we're separate entities
to everyone else,

and we have our own
personal view about things.

You fall in love with somebody,
you love it and you nurture it,

and you look after it
like it's your garden.

People garden. They cook.
They do the same thing.

My ingredients are clothes.

She introduced him to everyone.
She championed him.

So I suppose what
initially started

as a work relationship for her
became a creative friendship.

She was someone that was
always really excited

and wanted to see the next
thing and the new thing

and wanted to push people.

It was never about money,
as in I never saw any money

going forwards between
either of them.

I just remember the laughter,

exciting creativity of the
mid-90s and the adventure.

They were on this rocket.
They shot to the moon.

You're a hungry little thing.

The early days were
very happy days,

and it was short times,

but they were beautiful,
and they were funny.

And Issie didn't have children,

so she threw her maternal
love to her protégé.

I looked forward to seeing Alexander
'cause he made me laugh so much.

Issie and McQueen had a
dirty sense of humor.

McQueen would describe Issie

as a cross between
Lucrezia Borgia

and a Billingsgate fishwife.

Issie had a very vulgar humor.

I always found the cocks
and the cunts slightly...

I was a bit, "Oh."

I wasn't really into
their earthy humor,

but however rude McQueen
got, Issie was even worse.

They loved to play off each
other like that, be outrageous.

I know Alexander loves birds,

so I've got this bird hat
on designed by Philip

'cause we're gonna go out to
do some falconry tomorrow,

'cause Alexander's got a very...

You know he's
passionate about birds.

We're going to fly some
falcons tomorrow afternoon.

We did go and stay at
Hilles a few times.

He would end up diving into
Issie's dressing-up box

and we'd all be wearing sort
of fantastical costumes

for dinner and things like that.

The world she inhabited

was so far removed
from the world

that any of us had come from.

There was a sort of
unreality to it.

Whenever we went to that
house, you felt so at home.

And I think Lee felt
very at home there.

They had this big sister... fun person...
to be with, who's outrageous.

With Issie, be as different as you can...
and keep going.

The more different,
the more I love it.

I really don't like the normal.
I don't think it's...

You don't move forward.

Seriously, you just
don't move forward

if you play safe.

You really do piss a
lot of people off.

His first shows
were unbelievable.

People were winded by them.

People walked out. Quite
a few acerbic reviews.

But everything else before
paled into comparison.

I don't want to do a
show that you walk out

feeling like you've
just had Sunday lunch.

I want you to come out either
feeling repulsed or exhilarated,

as long as it's an emotion.

If you leave without emotion,

then I'm not doing my job
properly, so that's that.

That's the thing about Alexander, I
think his clothes are very emotional.

This coat is, like,
based on a tramp,

so it's based on someone
who hasn't got any money,

standing in the street,
nowhere to sleep.

You wrap it round yourself,
you feel fantastic.

Then you have all
this passion and love

and slashing and
sex and romance.

The idea of the collection
was never to produce.

The shows were all about publicity
and creating a marketing ploy

for Alexander McQueen,
the designer.

The clothes were
impossible to reproduce

'cause they were made out of
plastic bags or masking tape.

They were show clothes.

Lee had started doing bumsters.

These were cut so low

that you could see the
model's pubic hair.

It's nothing to do
with pubic hair.

It's just a technical thing
where, as a tailor knows,

you're breaking up the
proportion of the body,

by lowering the trousers,
elongating the torso.

It's nothing to do
with bum cleavage,

but that's an added bonus if
you've got a nice bum, so...

He told that model Gabe,

"Put your pubic hairs in
Anna Wintour's face."

It's just funny.
Naughty behavior.

You could give Alexander £500,

and he could produce
30 pieces of clothing.

He saw some cling foil on
the floor, and he said,

"I'm just gonna make
a dress out of that.

I'm gonna put the
model, wrap her up,"

and he just cut this
dress, put a zip in it,

and suddenly, that
went down the runway.

Getting a tire and running
it over the suit.

Just things like that.
Just genius.

Four pounds worth of lace.
Invisible zip... one pound.

Sprayed with car spray paint.

Probably cost less than ten
pounds, those dresses to make.

But through that weird alchemy
of being cut and made by Lee,

suddenly, they're
being requested.

Avedon wanted to have this
dress for Sharon Stone.

So it has to be in America now.

Need someone to fly over
with the dress on Concorde.

That still upsets me to this day.
I didn't get to go on Concorde.

It was me.

That's almost the period

where I think the madness
really kicked in.

The show was brilliant, but
I'll wake up tomorrow morning,

think, "I've got to get
a bottle of milk."

Where am I going
to get 42p from?"

So we went to a McDonald's,

got two cheeseburgers,
two fries, two Cokes,

and I was that tired that
I just dropped the tray,

and then we were having to pick
the food up off the floor.

And I thought, "This
is a weird world"

that you've shown the finale
of London Fashion Week,

"but we haven't got
five quid to eat."

That's how it is.

People don't understand that.

You do fucking fab shows,
but got to start living.

The Clothes Show, BBC One.

At the time, 12 million viewers.
You're 22 years old.

You're not in any of the
shots being interviewed,

and you're dictating the terms
on how you're going to appear.

Because I was doing the shows

on money that I got from
unemployment benefit,

I could not afford to
show my face on camera,

because I would be arrested for
working as well as signing on.

- Did it piss you off?
- No...

It should have done.
That was the idea.

I really worked
that East End yob,

this juxtaposition
between a hooligan

and someone that uses a needle,
and people couldn't fathom it.

That's how it was new. It
was a breath of fresh air.

Savile Row, Cockney geezer,
ding-dong, all of that.

He was aware how
seductive that was.

I get a bit annoyed
when I read that.

Oi!

He was far from a bad boy.

In fact, he was a very loving,
happy child and very generous.

Beautiful face, huh?

I just remember this one time
when I went round his house.

I think I'd said something was shit
or something in front of his mum,

and he just turned round,
glared at me and said,

"Don't you fucking swear in
front of my fucking mother."

We were never what
people called poor.

My husband was a
London taxi driver,

so even though there
was six children,

they all had everything
that they should have had.

I don't know. It just seems...

like honest.

An honest place round here.

You know where you stand,
if you know what I mean.

If someone's gonna mug you, they
tell you before they do it.

I'm only joking.

From our granddads, he
got the sense of humor,

which was, at times, wicked.

I think he struggled coming
out of that background

and going into the world.

That was the choice I made
to come out to my father.

I told all my brothers
and sisters and aunts,

but my father was a
London taxi driver.

He would come home
at night and say,

"God, I nearly run over a bloody
queer last night in Soho,"

and I'd have to deal with this.

My dad could be a bit
cutting sometimes,

but he was joking,

and if you didn't know him,

you'd probably take
that the wrong way.

Lee's father is saying, "Sell
your clothes in Brick Lane,"

and never quite understanding
what Lee was doing.

My dad wanted me to be some
sort of mechanic or something,

but it never worked
out that way.

From our nan, he got
that storytelling,

that dark romance of
the Victorian times.

I think that really lent itself

to his visions of the stories
that he wanted to tell.

It's not that...

It makes it smell.

- Come here.
- No, I'm too ugly.

You broke the camera!
Yeah, I know.

She was very strong and powerful

and quite a lot was unsaid,
but my God, you realized

there was a really strong
bond between them.

She made him feel like
he could do anything.

I always encouraged them to
read and have lots of books,

because I myself loved history
and things like that.

That's one about
a Highland clan.

She was looking to genealogy
of the McQueen family

and aimed at proving
that the McQueens

came from McQueens
of the Isle of Skye.

It opened up his world.

He was born in Stratford,

but he knew there was
this other life for him,

which come from Scotland.

She encouraged the sort
of fantasy and excitement

of those stories, and
Lee went with it.

You have two types of Scotland people
will associate themselves with,

the Vivienne Westwood
romantic Scotland,

swathes of tartan silk.

My ancestry is the
Jacobites of Scotland,

the war of the English
and the Scottish,

where the English raped loads of
women, killed clans completely off,

and it's like a form of
genocide, it was then.

And people don't realize this.

I mean, take Bosnia. How many
dead people have you seen?

There's millions of
dead people in Bosnia.

It's just genocide in the end,
and people have got to realize

that it still goes on
in the world today.

Something different about him.

He had this artistic
energy in him

rather than like a
fashion designer.

I rang his mother and say, "I
want to work for your son."

She gave me the address,
and I went one morning,

and ever since, we
were working every day

on the Highland Rape collection,

trying to get the pieces ready.

There were times when he hadn't yet
started working on the collection,

and it was due soon, and he would
do one drawing after another

after another, after
another after another,

and there was a collection
in one evening.

Very quick, very fluid.

He was also very
creative at night.

His adrenaline was
much more alive,

and we usually
used to put music.

He would listen to The Piano,
and it became very important.

The composer Michael Nyman
became part of his team.

I was just enjoying
myself to watch him,

because he was sitting
like an old lady,

his needle and his thimble.

You can feel like he's...

It's kind of a therapeutic
work for him.

He went into a sort of zone,

and I always used to say
his eyes went black,

because he suddenly was
focusing on what he was doing,

and he almost couldn't
hear anybody else.

He could draft a jacket freehand

just with a piece of chalk, so
he wasn't using measurements.

He could just, from his eye,
read someone's body measurements

and be able to draw that
out onto a bit of cloth.

At heart, Lee was a romantic,

and that romantic is because
of that physical relationship

to what you produce,

which then comes back to that
idea of craft, in a way.

The family would always
get invites to the shows.

Yeah, it was very important
my nan was there.

He really wanted to
make my nan proud.

Aunt Renee and Mum

made sure that the models
had some sandwiches.

Mum would have probably
done her sausage rolls.

We were all really,

as a group of young, really
cool English models,

so excited to see this man
that had this reputation.

I was amazed at all these
people, photographers,

and I thought, "My God,
they're all here to see Lee."

I hope they're not disappointed,

because I thought, "This is
just Lee from Stratford."

The darkness,

the going to the depths and
the recesses of one's mind

to come up with such
things like Highland Rape.

I'm going to send them
down, loads of girls,

like they've look like
they've just been raped.

But then we were
all looking like

we'd come out of a
hedge backwards,

and I was going, "Is this
the hair and makeup?"

They're not easy
garments to look at.

They do look like something
from a crime scene.

I honestly just thought that
he really didn't like women,

he didn't like the models,
he didn't like anything.

He was just trying
to torture us all.

But his vision,

when you actually came
down and the silhouette

and the way he made you
look was so extraordinary.

I don't think I really understood,
because... 15 at the time,

exactly what was going on
or the connotations of it.

It wasn't until probably the next
day that I read the newspapers

and there was quite a backlash
of the statement of the show.

I mean, it was pretty intense.

But he made every
single headline,

and that's what he wanted
to do, and he sure got it.

Judith Church, MP for Dagenham,

thought there was no
excuse for such a show.

The very title of the
show, Highland Rape,

has been done to shock people. It's
been done to attract publicity.

It has succeeded, and
that, in a way, is sad,

because I think women
want to look at fashion,

but they don't want to see it

in some way as portraying
them as a victim.

I'm not misogynist, but the
idea was saying to the public,

"A man takes from a woman.
The woman's not giving it."

And that's what rape is.

My oldest sister was badly
beaten up by her husband.

When you're eight years old

and you're seeing your sister

strangled by her husband,

who's now dead, thank God,

you know, all you wanna do
is make women look stronger.

You might not like the honesty
he was presenting you with,

you might find it distasteful, shocking
or aggressive or misogynistic,

but for him, it was his truth.

Those garments all
tell you about Lee,

and they're almost,
like, confessional.

They do relate to things that
happened in his childhood.

We were just in our flat.

It was literally in the
middle of the evening.

And he said, "By the way",

I was abused when I was a
child by my brother-in-law."

It just came out, and
he started crying,

and we started talking,

then almost as soon as he'd
started telling me all about,

he said, "I don't want to
talk about that anymore."

The stuff that he saw, the
violence against my mum,

the abuse he suffered by my dad

and the abuse my mum
suffered by dad,

they had that affinity together,
they shared that, Lee and my mum.

They were both affected
by the same person,

and they had that
connection through that.

And Lee saw my mum very
much like a mother figure

and somebody that he
wanted to protect,

but my mum wanted to
protect him as well.

I had some...

Quite a big burden
on my shoulders...

um...

but I'd always felt
close to Lee, and...

in the early years,

Lee had seen things like
domestic violence, and...

at the time, it must have also
had an effect on his mind.

That stuff he had to get out.

I think it was a way of
exorcising his demons,

a way of protecting
women and himself

by creating these strong women

who looked like
they had armor on.

It was armor for his
heart as well, so...

The relationship
between me and Lee,

I joked that it was
four seasons long,

purely because I think
those collections

and those shows became markers
in terms of how our work life

was also tied up with
our relationship.

And looking back on it now, I can
see the reasons why it would be...

How could a relationship work

with all the things that
were going on in his life,

all the things in his past?

I can't think of any relationship
that would be able to deal with that.

When you went to St. Martins, in
the first year, you go to Paris,

and the idea is that you're
meant to go to exhibitions.

But we just spent all of our time
wangling our way into various shows.

So we went to this show, and
it was all very floral,

and there was chiffon,
and Lee was going,

"That's rubbish. That's rubbish.
Oh, my God."

No, this is the worst show ever.
Bloody hell.

Givenchy, that's a load of crap.
That's for, like, old ladies.

"I never, ever want to
work somewhere like that."

It was a really exciting time
to be covering the industry...

because it was changing,
it was evolving.

People like Bernard Arnault were
buying up small family brands

and then turning them
into global corporations.

At first, he brought
in John Galliano,

and after two years,
moved John over to Dior

and then needed another new,
young, hot flavor for Givenchy.

And so he said... Why
did he want you?

He said when I was hired
that I was his horse.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's
in looks or what, but...

But he said I was his
horse he betted on.

I was living with Lee
when Givenchy called,

and he thought they wanted
him to design a handbag.

And I'm like, "Wow.
Cool, man." You know?

Next thing I know, um...

he comes in, and he
basically says that

they've asked him to be
creative director of Givenchy.

And I was like, "You
are kidding me."

He called me at work, and then he
said, "They've offered me this job.

Now if I move to Paris,
will you come with me?"

And I was like,
"Yeah, of course."

It was so exciting

and also quite scary as well

because it was still the honeymoon
period of our relationship.

Why did you go to Givenchy, having
already created your own name,

having won British Designer
of the Year twice in a row?

For one reason, the
money was good.

But then, what I do with
the money from Givenchy,

I put it straight
back into McQueen,

and it helps me employ people for
McQueen to build my own company up.

Very talented people that he
brought with him to Givenchy.

What a team, man.

He told me, "I will need
a team to work with me",

so I was thinking of you...

"so think about it
and let me know."

- There's nothing to think about.
- Of course I take the job.

We took an airplane
from City Airport.

We were the weirdest
people in the plane.

It was all, like, businessmen,

and we were there with
our bleached jeans

with a lot of attitude.

Where did you buy
this, in Japan?

Really?

Paris...

Woo!

There was huge excitement

because imagine when
you're that age

and you're being given
that amount of this,

one, responsibility and
also that amount of money.

Statue.

There's Sebastian Pons.

Hello, Sebastian.

Sweaty armpits. God,
you got wet patches.

I think that in the
McQueen studio,

I was a little bit
like the buffoon

'cause I was the
funny one there.

They were taking the
piss of my accent.

Spanish buffoon in
a British coat.

Simon Costin.

God, you're looking kind
of gross today, Simon.

I saw myself as the person
that put things into context.

The set was always
there to reflect

the sort of untold story
of the collection.

There was Katy, of
course, Katy England.

Katy's the most important
part of McQueen.

Camera up, please.

She's the Tweedledee
to my Tweedledum.

She fuels my imagination.

I help research the collection.

I bring things to his attention

that I think might be
important in fashion.

Basically, I'm always there
at the right-hand side.

Shaun Leane was very much involved
in the business making jewelry.

What do you think?
Fancy a dance?

For me to do work like
this is very good for me.

It allows me to go from
one extreme to the other,

and now I'm going into different areas.
I'm working with body jewelry,

and it's really going into a
form of sculpture, really.

Sarah Burton. Sarah
was the intern.

He looked at us like
the sort of pillars

that will make him feel secure.

We had this really nice flat.

I loved the area. Place des Vosges.
I mean, hello.

God, that's pretty scary.

Thinking about it
now, it was tiny.

When I would come over to
start working on the set,

I'd be on the sofa.

Sebastian.

Ooh, language!

I always ended up
sleeping in Lee's room

because Lee was always
collapsing on the sofa.

Lee.

- You changed the pillow.
- Yeah, fucking right.

We had a driver, so we
got driven everywhere.

Wait a minute. He
gone blind today.

Say hello to the
people of England.

Such fun.

Could do some funny
tricks, sort of.

Oh, I'm on speed, baby.

When we arrive at Givenchy,

everybody was kind of like
bending their head to him

and calling him
Monsieur McQueen,

which was, "They calling you
Monsieur McQueen here?"

When we arrived, I think
they were in shock,

the way we dress,
the way we work,

and the jokes we made.

It was very grand.
There's chandeliers.

It was different from the
working environment in London,

which was a kind of
very, very small room

with chaotic stuff everywhere.

Here I have my own office.

I pick up the phone,
and I get what I want.

'Cause I want it, I want it, I want it...
so I ask for it.

It was just like a bunch of young
kids running about in the Givenchy.

Were they surprised
that you were chosen?

I think they... would put
most people in a coma.

All of a sudden, we're there
sitting in the Givenchy House

looking out the window,

and you see the Balenciaga sign

and you knew that Yves
Saint Laurent was there

and knowing that John Galliano
was there, Avenue Montaigne,

just a few yards from there.

And there we are with
Alexander McQueen

being the new talk of the town.

And that felt special.

He was trying to
find his feet there.

Obviously had to make
a huge impression

because it was his
first collection.

And I remember telling Lee,

"Everybody's looking at
us, and we have nothing."

And he always would answer,

"Don't worry, Sebastian.
We'll get it done."

This is Paris and Paris chic.

This is Givenchy.
This is not McQueen.

This is where elegant suits are made
and fantastic fabrics are used.

It's going to take my
own label, McQueen,

another 40 years to get the
reputation this one has.

I remember once we saw
this beautiful work.

Lee asked Catherine De Londres,
was the charge of atelier,

"Who's done this fabulous work?"

"She's not allowed to come in."

He's like, "What do you mean
she's not allowed to come in?"

Please let her in."

I remember from that day on,
Lee wanted to see the person

who has worked directly
with the garment,

and I think they loved that.

This is the Bet Lynch dress.

I also treated it,

bonding plastic over
the top for raincoats,

so you get the whole ensemble.

None of us spoke French,

and the French atelier
didn't speak English.

Lee would actually kind
of like draw in the air

how it would have to be.

- Mais la jupe?
- Yeah. It's okay.

- La jupe...
- Oh, jupe. It's okay.

- I think she...
- I thought it was pantalon.

They're quite precise, and,
like, take the threads out,

and I just get the scissors
and go whack it off

and they go...

like that, and I go, "It's okay.
It's only clothes."

I'll never forget the
expression on her face,

but in the end, she saw
exactly what he was doing.

She was in awe.

A very mutual respect grew
between the two of them.

Haute couture is
about the atelier.

I come from Savile Row,

so I have great respect
for the tailors.

They deserve just as
much praise as I do.

Lee, one day he said,

"Where can we go and eat?
Where do the workers eat?"

And then Catherine said,

"No, there is a canteen on the
basement for the workers."

And Lee was like, "So
let's go there."

When we went down there, the
people, they're flipping out,

like, "Alexander is
eating with us."

They couldn't believe it.

These fashion houses,

they treat the designer
like he's a king,

and they treated
Lee like a king,

but Lee didn't want to
behave like a king.

Lee wanted to behave
like a regular person.

Okay.

The ideas for the show, they
grew out of the collection.

As the collection developed,

he would pull threads and
stories out of that.

And there was always mood boards and
things pinned all over the walls.

Everyone fed in. It was
a very group practice,

but Lee was the spider in the
center of the web, as it were,

pulling everything together

and distilling what it was
that he had in his head.

I remember the fraughtness
about a week before the show

when things were coming
down and not right,

and things having to be changed.

It was really insanely crazy.
The pressure was super-intense.

In 25 days, to put a 55-outfit
collection together

is not an easy task.

The first couture show had the
theme of the Golden Fleece.

Jason and the Argonauts.

They wanted it to be amazing.

My first feeling from
Alex's description

was there had to be warriors

mixed with goddess.

I say, "We do horns." He
say, "Yeah, but do big."

I say, "But how big?"

He say, "You know Genghis
Khan is the junior size."

Give me the senior."

It's the 19th of January, 1997,

and as they say in the trade,

we're about to witness
a fashion moment.

At the tender age of 27,

British Designer of the
Year, Alexander McQueen,

is about to show his first
haute couture collection.

Every model had to
have a character,

an identity, a signature.

Every single girl could
have been shown on her own.

Where's the inspiration come from?
He told me, "From the logo."

The logo is the Gs, which
it looks like Greek motif,

and the Givenchy label
is white and gold.

And always with
Lee's collections,

there were some pieces
where you were...

"Oh! That's rather risqué."

I think a lot of the press
focused on the ones

that were a little bit crazy
or a little bit unwearable.

French designers were
complaining and saying,

"Oh, you know, they're
not even French,"

and they're taking
over Givenchy.

"Look what he's
doing to Givenchy."

I think it was them saying,
"I'm still gonna be who I am.

Regardless that you put me in this
posh space, I'm still who I am."

I liked that, that they
stayed true to who they were.

They actually brought England into
Paris in their own unique way.

People were talking,
fashion editors.

"He has a big mouth."
"He has a big head."

"The British, what
does he think?"

And then I understood

that basically the
world was against him.

You go to do your first show,
it's not a huge success. No?

No, that's true. Well done.

They were wishing to see him
crash and be destroyed.

They have claws, and
they have knives,

and they've thrown everything
into your back, which is fine,

'cause I'm a good fighter...

I remember us
afterwards, Lee was...

Hellish, yeah. That was
a really hard night.

It was a difficult
night after that.

A few punches and arguments.

I think he's already done
a lot for the house,

because Givenchy have
had a lot of press.

It's a more difficult thing to deal with
'cause McQueen is McQueen in London.

Givenchy is taking over
from another man in Paris.

As Alexander says himself,

"It's like taking a
dinosaur out of the sea,"

and I think in one
season, he's done that.

So I think in a year, he will
have done 20 times that.

Givenchy changed everything.

The fun times were over.

I had an accountant
who spoke French,

and I'm going to Paris
to sign the deal.

And I said, "Please make sure
Issie gets something out of it."

I kind of did ask McQueen,
and McQueen said,

"Issie and I are
not about money."

When the money did come and
Alexander cut her out,

that was very tough.

The friendship changed. She
was so hurt, this rejection.

She'd have created a buzz.

She'd have had a
salon at Givenchy.

She'd have made it the most
happening place in Paris.

I do remember going to Hilles straight
after the takeover at Givenchy.

You can't imagine the tension
between the two of them

in this room.

These designers think
that you made me...

- No, they don't.
- It's never been about...

No, they don't. They
know that that...

They do!

'Cause don't you see it all
the time in the press?

"Isabella Blow responsible for Philip
Treacy and Alexander McQueen?"

- No. They say...
- They do just say that.

The thing is, it's never been
about that for me and you.

- Whether I was part of it...
- Does that annoy you

that they always put "as
discovered by Isabella Blow?"

Does it really piss you off?

Not at all because Issie has
helped me a lot in that way,

but not in a way
that she's all like,

she does it because
she loves my clothes,

not because she loves me.

- Exactly. That's the point.
- Ah!

I can't stand her guts.

I'm joking.

I do remember sitting
there, thinking to myself,

"Please lay off Issie,"

because she's done
nothing but help you,

"but you seem to be giving her
a really difficult time."

Issie, kingmaker, and this
is a man she championed,

and then he resented that and
wanted to be his own man,

so there was no position for
Isabella Blow at Givenchy.

Punishment.

And I remember McQueen
turned to me and said,

"I'm the tycoon now, Detmar,"

and it wasn't meant
affectionately.

We had a policy,
don't show hurt,

don't show weakness,
keep your head up,

keep proud, keep fighting.

Something will turn up.
It's got to.

His star ascended, and
hers didn't as much,

and, you know, he
slightly abandoned her.

Then Issie suddenly got this
job at the Sunday Times,

and McQueen said, "You've
been resurrected, Issie,"

and, yeah, I thought, "No
thanks to you, mate."

I saw myself within the
press and in the public eye

as the gazelle, and a
gazelle always got eaten.

And that's how I see human life.

We can all be discarded
quite easily.

The fragility of a designer's
time in the press.

You're there, you're gone.

It's a jungle out there.

I went to his London studio,

and he was talking about
the haute couture show.

"I tried to please them,
and then I fucked it up,"

so I'm gonna do my own thing.

"It's gonna be very
McQueen, the next one."

"Fuck you.

Fuck you, all of you.
I'm gonna show you."

We went from this sort of, the
hallowed halls of Givenchy,

into a sort of rough,
gritty Borough Market.

People sweeping all the
rotting fruit and veg up.

It's nice to show them the
rough part of London,

make them scared, look over
their shoulder once in a while.

It's nothing to do with couture.
Now you forgot Givenchy.

We're in another chapter, in
another world, in another McQueen.

All camera crews go
round the front gate.

The London shows were always...

The audience, the
expectation was so great.

The shows in Paris were far
more formal and reserved.

People would scream their
heads off in London.

It was crazy.

People literally fighting
to see the catwalk.

Lee running from model to model

and screaming and
shouting at everyone.

No. We want to start the show.
Get back out there.

Always moving, always
dressing, always stressing.

Stressing and dressing,
actually, together.

They're all standing
by, ready to go.

Where's Russell? Is he out there?
Is he getting ready?

Yeah. Yep.

One of the models was late.

He said, "Fuck her," and
he started the show.

He used to go, "Right, Jods.
Just go for it."

He used to psych me up, and I used to
get out onto the catwalk and go...

It was really the first
time that the collection

kind of seeped out
into everything,

from the energy that
was in that space

to the effect it had on people.

A sort of angst,
an anger and fear

that was woven
through that show.

We were mind-blown,

because they didn't
look like models.

They look like animals.

Just big hair and
this animal makeup...

It was, like... it was intense.

There were some students
that weren't allowed in

that stormed the barricades

and kicked over all
these fire pots.

And then the fire started.

'Cause there were a
pile of crashed cars,

and I don't think we'd
emptied the cars of petrol.

The car's actually on fire.

There's a fricking car
on fire on the catwalk.

Everyone thought it
was part of the show.

He's going, "Don't you... dare"

go out there with
fire extinguishers."

To just keep sending them
out, keep sending them out.

Had that not been
rectified, that whole tent

and all the top fashion editors and
models would have been history.

That's back to
typical, wonderful,

mad, brilliant Lee.

Did you move out of London?

Did you settle in Paris now?

I stay both.

I'm here for six months and
London six months. All over.

My dog is in London,
and I'm missing him.

I'm missing my dog.

Traveling between the two cities
to do Givenchy and McQueen,

of course... it would
take its toll.

But he did it, and he managed
to make the shows amazing.

By that time, there was
so much more pressure,

because he was also
doing his own line

and then having to do
ready-to-wear haute couture.

You could see the beginning of
the pressure that Lee was under.

The favorite company
of LVMH was Dior.

Lee felt they were really
comparing him with Galliano.

And then he sort of found out

that John had four times
more budget than him

to create his haute
couture collection.

The house we loved was
the McQueen house.

Givenchy was like a stepbrother.

We knew that our time
there had an expiry date.

When we arrived for Paris, Lee's
clothes tend to be very rigid,

and I think in Paris,

he got to discover the
soft side of things.

We took that and we
brought it to London.

For the number 13, I
remember him very happy.

Lee had it very
clear on his head

what he wanted to do.

We all left the
meeting thinking,

"Oh, my God, he has it
very clear this season.

He knows what colors,
he knows the shape."

Him himself was feeling
at peace, you know?

The first show I ever
worked on with Lee,

he liked the idea of robots.

Lee keep going on about, "I'm gonna
have this robot, this model,"

and we were like, "No, the robots again.
Oh, my God."

We were just hoping he was
gonna forget the idea,

but then, the night before the
show, the robot did turn up,

and we didn't have a dress
to go with the robot.

I went back to the studio.
I was like,

"Guys, we need to make a
dress for the finale."

Who went under the table and
pulled all this tulle out.

And he was like, "Hey,
there's the dress."

They told him it was impossible,

and he said, "No, it's not.
You can do it."

And that's what Lee
did for people...

He made them do the impossible.

He got some technician down
to operate the robots,

and Lee was straight, "Yeah, let's
make the robots do more of this."

So Lee's directing these
robots like they're actors,

and consequently, you end up with
this incredible choreography

and her spinning.

You had Shalom Harlow there

and these two robots going
round, and the thing is,

the robots looked like they
were a mind of their own.

Think that's the first time that
I was blown away by my own show.

That man-and-machine thing at the end is...
I'm still in shock, really.

That's the first time I've
cried at my show, so...

Yeah.

Lee was living his dream.

He would never have given the
work up, as hard as it was,

because you get that
one chance in life.

First time I knew that Lee was
actually getting very famous

is when some stranger came
up to us in the supermarket

and asked for his autograph.

And I remember him saying to
me, "My God, that's so scary."

And I realized then that
something was happening.

He was breaking outside of
fashion and becoming famous.

That whole celebrity thing,
people chasing after him...

'cause you got the
feeling he was saying,

"This isn't the important thing.
This fame is nonsense.

The important thing
is what I do."

Sometimes wish he just
had a normal life

and that he could just
be a normal person,

in terms of not having that
pressure of everything

at such a young age.

I knew Lee when he had nothing

but a rubbish bin
full of clothes,

so I saw very quickly him
become a millionaire and more.

And the more money he had, he
seemed to be more unhappy.

'Cause with the money came
drugs, and that was a sad thing.

When did it become bad? Well...

It became bad when the pressure
became too much for him,

and he obviously started
dealing with it in ways

he shouldn't have,
unfortunately.

And with it came
an aggressiveness,

like kind of anger and
a sort of paranoia.

But he's still producing
great clothes,

but the personality
changed, huh?

You know what I mean? And
all the hard work I do.

I do ten collections a
year, and it's hard work.

I didn't go to Givenchy.
They come to me.

So I got really upset when
people started saying

I was gonna get fired
when it wasn't true.

So, sod the lot of you.
I do what I like.

There was definitely a change and
definitely a move in our relationship,

who had two sides to them.

He could come in a
super-cool mood,

like, full of laughter and that,

or it could be a devil
crossing the door.

He was obviously a very
troubled person...

and the darkness created
this amazing creativity

and genius artist.

I had a tattoo saying
"McQueen" on my arm.

I got it covered up, and I
think when he found out,

that was kind of like
the end of everything.

Lee was a romantic,

and I think he flirted always
with the idea of love.

I'm not sure whether
he ever achieved it.

The big thing in his life that he
was in love with was his work.

And also, he didn't
trust anyone.

He thought if the boyfriend is not here,
it's because he's with someone else,

and that made him suffer a lot.

People forget what fashion's
always been about.

It's about attracting a mate.
It's about sexuality.

It's about showing a
person who you are.

Uh... I'm sorry if you
think I'm stupid.

Even I'm chubby, and I would
like to look smaller.

I mean, let's be realistic here.

And even when he changed his
appearance, and he said,

"I changed myself. It was
the wrong thing to do.

Because I completely lost
touch with who I was."

What was it? Ten years from
Lee, little Lee McQueen,

sat in the corner of
my studio sewing away,

to this svelte figure dressed
in Comme des Garçons,

having to become something he
didn't really want to be...

This sort of persona,
this Alexander McQueen.

Six in the morning.

No, don't do that to her.

She's only got a few hours left.

It wasn't fun anymore for me.

I think that was the bottom line.
It wasn't fun anymore.

I don't like how they...

Take them off now.

I've never done better work
than my time with Lee.

It was times that
were dark with him

and times that were very
bright, and we all chose it.

We all chose to be there,

and we all chose to not be
there sometimes as well.

I collapsed once in Givenchy

because of the pressure
and the workload.

We had a price to pay,
and it was our health.

I grew in the company.

Of course, I wasn't the little
boy that I started there.

As I grew up, I realized
that I was feeling like

I was a little bit
claustrophobic of the situation.

Sebastian.

Come on, you ugly bitch.

It was like full devotion
to the McQueen house,

looking after his dogs,

endless hours of working,

and weekends either working
or socializing with Lee.

We were going also
on holiday together.

I even know how to fake his signature.
You know!

I was feeling, like, trapped.

Even if I loved
what I was doing.

I tried to speak with him,

and that didn't
end up that well.

The day I told him I was
leaving, he told me,

"You better think about it,
because there is no way back."

And I left, and it was really
sad, you know, my leaving.

It was no one...

no one, um, came to...

After all the work I've done and...
Oh...

Unfortunately, Lee took
things quite to heart

without maybe thinking about

what the other person was going
through or what they needed.

And he would take
it very personally

when someone would leave
or he felt betrayed.

A lot of people around fashion
do suffer from anxiety,

do suffer from panic
attacks, depression.

The industry is
feeding this ego,

and it has a very
negative effect.

For the Voss show, the original
concept was the padded cell.

And you start losing who you
are, and it becomes a darkness

and a place that you
can't get out of.

And, of course, Lee being Lee,

he wasn't happy with just
this one really great idea.

You had to have another
box in the middle.

He has a kind of theatrical
climax to the show.

When he came and sat down
to explain what it was,

he wouldn't look me in the
eye, and he was saying,

"Yes, it's about death
and beauty and rebirth,

and it's gonna be beautiful."

I really wasn't expecting
Lee to recreate

Joel-Peter Witkin's
famous Incubus image.

It's a pretty gruesome image.

I'm thinking, "Oh, my goodness,
am I gonna do this?"

And I was like, "All
right, and I will do it,"

but I want you to
know, serious face,

"I'm doing it for art."

And he looked at
me like I was mad,

and then he looked
away, and he went,

"I thought we all were,
weren't we?" And he was off.

The actual set had that
Stanley Kubrick 2001

meets an insane asylum feel,

and the fact that there
was the two-way mirror

so that when the fashion people,

when the fashion press came in
to wait for the show to start,

they were all looking at
themselves in the mirror.

The music started...
Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum...

With his heartbeat that went
faster and faster and faster.

We didn't know quite
what was gonna expect,

what was gonna happen, and none
of the audience knew at all.

Fashion is a big bubble, and
sometimes I feel like popping it.

Then when the show starts,
boom, you can see inside.

The models can't see
the audience at all.

Was suddenly a much more
kind of voyeuristic thing.

The bandages that he put
on all the models' heads,

so it had that slight feeling
of unease and sickness

and bedlam feel about it.

There was one time that I'd
just come out of surgery,

and he came to visit
me, and he saw me,

and I had bandages everywhere,
and I was all bruised up,

and he was, "Fucking wicked,"
as he would do that.

He absorbed things
like a sponge,

saw the beauty in the ugly,
as with the bandages on me.

Life isn't perfect, and
we're not all perfect.

We're not all size-zero models,

but there is beauty within
the eye of the beholder.

For the final image to be
this one of a large woman

with moths everywhere, it
sounds like a joke, really,

but I do think there's a sense of humor
going on underneath there as well.

It's fat birds and moths.

I mean, isn't that just
fashion's worst nightmare?

Every season, whose
collections do I look at

and whose collections am I
jealous of, in a sense?

And whose collections do I
think are absolutely amazing?

Tom was literally God
in the industry.

I guess even if Lee
was a rebel...

and he was a totally
different kind of person,

he probably was flattered
and touched by the fact

that someone like Tom Ford
noticed him and wanted him.

And also, he was
smart enough to know

that he needed that
financial help.

The wonderful thing about
Lee is he is poet,

and he won't like this,
either, but it's true,

poet and commerce united,
because he's very practical.

So he understands you can express
whatever you want on the runway,

but you have to have something
beautiful on the hanger

to sell to a store.

Gucci Group was smart.

They saw what the potential was,

and they offered McQueen a deal
he thought he couldn't refuse,

which was, "Here, we'll
underwrite your company"

and give you 50%
of the ownership."

They had secret meetings
so that none of this

would get back to Arnault
and the LVMH people,

and they had no idea it was
coming until it hit them.

I was quite adamant when I talked to
Tom that this was a one-man band.

So they leave you alone
to design what you want.

Hundred percent.

I was looking for
major investment...

and then Gucci got
in touch, and...

the rest is history.

Au revoir, Givenchy.

Dodo.

What's he doing?

I have an affinity with the sea.

I don't know. Maybe
'cause I'm Pisces.

And when it rains and it snows,

and you're near the sea, and
you can hear the waves.

It's very melancholic,
but it's very romantic.

Sometimes you need
to have a break

to get away from everything
and not to think about

sort of, like, business
and fashion shows

and to take time out.

I have to be
surrounded by nature.

This is older than the house.

This is over 400 years old.

It's an elm tree,

and we uplight it at night.

And it's, like, it's
good inspiration.

All my friends come here,
and we have the fire on,

and we watch DVDs and
listen to music,

and it's nice and relaxing.

He would be spending time with
my mum a lot down the cottage.

I'm grateful that we had
that time together.

We seen more of each other.
We did things together.

My family keep me grounded.

Fashion can be a very
superficial business.

Where I started in London,
there was nothing like this.

It's as close as we can get to haute
couture in England, you know.

All the people
here are students,

and it's like training
them up and giving them

their initial step into
the world of fashion.

Lee knew from when
I was a little boy

that I loved to draw, and I
was always very artistic.

A lot of time had passed, and I
was working at a rubbish tip

and Lee had the position for a
textile designer on menswear,

and that's when he took me on.

Lee was really happy
having me there,

firstly, on the creative level,

but secondly, just
having something

that reminded him of his
past and his childhood.

Does that look right?

There was a period when
it wasn't so good,

and I had a lot of angst,
and it was kind of hard.

There was a lot of
confliction in my head

with doing the job I didn't particularly
want to do, which was Givenchy.

But I think I've come to a stage
where I just accept this is my life.

This is what I was born to do.

He controlled the vibe
wherever he went.

A lot of the time, he was
such a buzz to be around.

Way I kind of put it is
like he was the queen bee

with the worker bees
responding to the signals

from that queen bee,
and people felt that,

you know, he had this
kind of childish way

of sort of mucking about
in the studio environment,

and it just made things so light
and such a nice place to be.

There was always something
creative happening.

That's what excited everybody.

I speak so loudly
in my work itself.

I think everything
I do is personal.

Even turning Kate Moss into a hologram
is kind of personal. It's ethereal.

It's a time I'm feeling at one
with the world and heavenly.

If you want to know me,
just look at my work.

What does fashion mean to you?

My life.

Issie died proud.

She died having achieved
beyond her wildest dreams.

The fact that Issie went was a
huge blow to so many people,

including Alexander, huge blow.

I saw him at Issie's funeral, and
I've never seen anyone so devastated.

Couldn't recognize. He was...

He sat right behind me,
but I turned round,

this person in a Highland...
kilt

and the hat and looking very...

I thought, "My God, it's
McQueen, Alexander."

And the look on his
face was haunting.

I felt for him.

Could just... you could just
see the pain... he suffered.

I could see the love.
Never deny the love.

It was such a love affair
between those two.

Issie seemed to slot in
between a sister and a mum.

And she was in the middle,

and Lee just loved Issie.

The connection between
Issie and McQueen,

they both carried sadnesses.

Alexander had been abused.

He felt that person had
destroyed his innocence.

Issie had this very sad instance
when she was about five years old,

when her brother she
was playing with died,

not Issie's fault, but she
always felt responsible for him

and carried that guilt.

There was a destructive
side and destructive issues

which she could never resolve
entirely, and they would blow up...

which became more
and more serious.

I don't take drugs but
I take medication.

Sometimes I have to take a
pill just to keep me calm.

The pathway to her
self-destruction was clear.

Issie perhaps was thinking she
didn't want to go on forever.

She couldn't reinvent
herself as an old woman

'cause fashion's
all about youth.

Discovering people
is a big thing.

It's like being a mother,
and the milk's dried up.

Issie was planning her death.

So she wanted to say
goodbye to McQueen...

and she organized a weekend.

She gone to a lot of trouble
with a very lovely menu.

Alexander was exhausted,

and he turned up and
just stayed in his room.

Whatever she needed, he wasn't
able to give it himself.

But they did see each other.

Yeah. There was a
farewell between them.

Big hug and kiss and "See
you in the next world."

The thing is, when you're ill,

you don't know...
You're very alone.

Issie had cancer at the
end, ovarian cancer.

It was terminal. Who knows? Issie wouldn't
have been interested in chemotherapy.

The last thing Issie said to me,

"Do you remember, Detmar, when
I was a ray of sunshine?"

And I said, "Issie, you'll
always be a ray of sunshine."

McQueen is calling his
show La Dame Bleue.

He's dedicating this show

to his late, great friend
and mentor, Isabella Blow.

You could see her
in the clothes.

You could smell the
perfume of her around,

and you could see her
children, in a way.

And backstage, Alexander and
Philip going crazy together.

What bonded them was Issie.

Isabella single-handedly
invented Alexander and myself

from nowhere with
such conviction

that we will never
experience again.

Her belief in you

made you be the person you were.

Once you sat down and you saw
the set and the music...

you were there, and it held you,

because I kept seeing her in the
clothes he was putting on the catwalk,

and the hats, of course,
that Philip was designing.

It was actually creating
some mythical figure

that was like Issie's
presence at the show.

So emotional. Just
couldn't stop crying.

Was bent over double,

and... grief is grief.

You have to go through it.

Then to see them come on and
realize how young they were,

and they'd lost a great friend,

and how they had loved her.

I think it had a
big effect on Lee.

After Issie passed away,

he was in a really dark place.

We were watching
TV in the evening,

and Lee McQueen opened
the news that day

with the Horn of Plenty show.

And my father was sitting there,

and he's like,
"Sebastian, come over.

I think it's your crazy
friend's fashion on TV."

And when my father saw the
collection and is like...

"I think your friend
has gone really mad."

And I think with the
Horn of Plenty,

that really reflects the
fashion world today...

A pile of crap.

Three years of being apart,

I think a lot, and I think
he think a lot, also.

When I call him,

it was like, "Hello, Lee?"

"Hello?" It's, like,

"Lee, it's Sebastian."

"Where the fuck have you
been all this time,

you fucking bastard?"

We just started again

like the brothers
we were before.

So then I took the
ferry to Ibiza,

and I went to his villa.

When he opened the
door, I was in shock,

because the person
who opened the door,

he was a different person.

He was really skinny and
looking very fragile

and very, very pale.

When I hug him,

that's when I notice
something has changed,

because his body structure
was just bones.

There was hardly any
muscle or flesh there.

Lee come in with the idea of
having an invitation for a show

that had that metamorphosis.

He wanted his face to
transform into a skull.

Everything in his life had just
led to these feelings of torment.

Lee was HIV-positive.

Even though it isn't a
death sentence, as such...

I think it was always in
the back of Lee's mind.

You'd feel the bad vibes
when Lee was down, you know?

There was a real depression that
was brought with that as well.

I think the trouble is with Lee,

after a show, when you've
done that build-up

and you've worked hard,
and you could see

there was a little
bit of a down.

And then on to the
next show again.

Yeah, it was show after... I
don't know how Lee did it.

The pressure's kind
of quite immense now

because of the Gucci
contract, and...

You know, I do the men's
now, and now I also do McQ,

so it's about 14
collections a year again,

same as when I was at
Givenchy, so it's hard work.

I think he would have liked
the idea of moving away

and just leaving
everything behind,

but as it is his
name above the door

and his reputation as a person
and everything he had built,

he couldn't just abandon it.

If I ever get that old
and I'm still around

and I leave my company, I'll
just burn the place down.

Yeah. No one'll work there.

Really? So you'd never
let someone carry on...

the McQueen tradition
or the McQueen brand

if you weren't
actively involved?

I don't think so.

I mean... It doesn't...

Because that person will have to come
up with the concepts for my show,

and my shows are so
personal, how can that be?

I said, "Why don't you step
away, Lee, for a year?"

And he just said, "You
don't understand."

He said, "I'm responsible
for 50 people.

They've got to pay their mortgage.
I can't just stop."

I was always thinking,

"There's so much
sadness in him,"

and that was sad,

because he was this
successful, flamboyant being

who actually was so
lonely deep inside.

It can be really lonely,

and I think, you know, I'd...

I think there's more
to life than fashion,

and I don't want to be
stuck in that bubble

of this is what I do,

because it's nice, because you
see everyone in the office,

they go home, and
they can shut off,

but I'm still Alexander McQueen
after I shut the door.

You know what I mean? I've
got to go home with myself.

If you've had a bad day,

I've only got myself
to answer to, so...

I mean, with us, it was like

behaving all right, okay,

but deep inside, we
knew that he wasn't...

he wasn't hundred percent.

He could hear voices.

He was telling me that
they were chasing him.

One thing he used to say,

"Paranoia will destroy ya."

I remember doing a drawing,

which is basically it's got
lots of cameras around,

then we're thinking, "Maybe the
cameras could be on robots."

It was always about getting the
camera right in your face.

It's surveillance. It's making
the audience uncomfortable.

The idea behind Plato's Atlantis

is where people come from the
land and go back into the sea.

He loved swimming, scuba diving.

He loved that feeling

of just being in a different
world underwater.

You know, just away
from everything,

almost like you're back
in the womb floating,

you know? And that kind of serenity
you would get through that.

Plato's Atlantis was kind
of like a study in his head

with all the digital printing
and all the experimenting,

pattern cutting, and the
robots were there again.

He said to me, "I design my
last collection, Sebastian,"

and he told me, "I had
enough with all this.

I gonna kill myself."

"What do you mean, you're
gonna kill yourself?"

He's like, "Yeah." He's
like, "I am fed up.

I had it with this. I just
want to put this an end.

"And in my last
show, in the end,"

he said, "Do you remember Voss?"

So I'm gonna do the sort of same thing,
but it's gonna be a Perspex box,

the size of a human being,
so when the show ends,

this box is gonna come
out from the ground...

with me inside,

"and then I'm just
gonna shoot myself."

And...

And I just didn't know

how to react to that,
you know what I mean,

because... he sounded
so convincing.

It was like he thought that
the whole fashion system

was against him.

And I said, "No, no
one is against you."

"But if you are
thinking to do this,"

you're gonna harm
so many people,

because people
come to your shows

to see your beauty, your
talent, your creativity,

"and you... to see you,
to see your work."

He was like a movie director.

We had to be like aliens,
and he told us this.

He said, "Listen, you have
to have this face, strong."

You have to be powerful."

With this show, he kind
of throw a bomb on us.

"Okay, this is it. Finish."

Everything is finished.
We are reborn.

"We're starting new...
New chapter, new plans."

I was really scared.

I tried to not to
picture myself falling.

I wanted him to be proud of me,
and I wanted him to be proud

that he has such a
army of models.

Endless print designs.
Might've been a fish's fin.

Scales from a snake.

Then manipulated and montaged
into a repeat pattern

and become something
else unrecognizable.

This was the turn of the digital
age coming into fashion.

If it was the end,

then that had to be why his
best collection is there.

He knew he needed
something revolutionary,

and I think Plato's Atlantis it is.
I'm sorry.

I didn't go to Plato,
my mum not being well.

She was on dialysis at the time.

Lee didn't really
want to face the fact

that we was gonna lose Mum
because he'd lost Issie.

He wasn't...

dealing with Mum not being well.

After my grandmother,
Joyce, had passed away...

he was in really bad shape.

Lee was distraught.

We were sitting in the
living room at my dad's...

and he didn't look
hisself at all, Lee.

We was all taking my
mum's passing bad,

but I think we was all
worried about Lee,

because obviously,
Mum and Lee...

Lee idolized my mum.

The last job he gave me to do
was designing the gravestone.

He liked the idea like the wings
wrapping round a gravestone

to kind of embrace my
grandmother, Joyce.

Originally, I had the hands,

which were facing down on
top of the gravestone...

but the hands for
him, facing down,

was holding them down.

He want them uplifted, so he
turned the hands upwards.

I called Lee,

and...

we spoke about Mum's funeral,

and... and that was the
last conversation.

The night, I was in
bed, I was reading,

and I felt something
touch my head...

very softly and very
gently touch my head,

and I said to myself, "Who's here?
Who are you?"

You know, I knew someone had
passed and was saying goodbye.

I got a call at half
past nine in the morning

from my sister,

and then that phone call...

just... changed...

everything.

I really couldn't believe
what I was hearing,

because it just seemed so
surreal in that moment.

Just a vision in my mind

of Lee being sort of all alone

and doing that as well was
playing through my mind,

and it's quite...

it's not the nicest
way to go, you know,

suicide, alone, hanging.

It's...

Don't want to think really what
was going through his mind,

how lonely he must have
been as well doing it.

The fashion world
is in shock tonight

over the news that
Alexander McQueen...

Alexander McQueen, the
darling of British fashion,

has been found dead
after apparent...

Alexander McQueen...

He used to say that a lot...

One day, I'm gonna come home

inside a body bag...

and that day when...

the news open again that day...

him leaving his house
inside a body bag.

I'd taken my kids to Hamleys'
hundredth-year celebration,

and my partner picked
me up and said,

I've got... I can't do it.

Just be wast... I just cry.

He said, "Lee's dead," and...

it was just such a shock,

and I was so angry for
a really long time.

'Cause you think
just, "How do you...

"How did that happen?" He's...

I think that...

perhaps after my mum went

that he felt there was nothing

that could make him
happy anymore.

And I just think it was
in that moment that...

he had that emptiness.

I miss him a lot, yeah.

I miss that... that, you know...

he could've had some really
great happiness in his life

and he didn't quite have
that in his personal life,

and that's what I wish...
wished for him most.

Yeah.

I'm so happy I got to...
to meet him

and to...

to share part of my life

with his story, and everything.

But I miss him.

I wish...

things ended in a different way.

He wanted to make really
beautiful things,

and he was...
Sculpted in clothing.

He was a sculptor,
really, I think,

and that's where that
silhouette came from.

His clothes made me feel
that you could be feminine,

but at the same time,
"Don't fuck with me.

I'm a bitch."

Things I remember best
is seeing him working.

It was magical. For me,
it was like a magician.

One outfit would just be insane,

and then the next one
would just be genius.

Nobody could create
emotions in a show

like Lee McQueen did.

Fashion for Lee was a way of
communicating a whole world,

and he wanted to take
himself out of the picture

and for people to focus on
this art Lee's creating.

Raucous, bolshie,

incredibly funny,
incredibly driven.

Not only did he have
a singular vision,

but he was a very
singular individual,

and his strength of personality
was quite phenomenal.

You don't see many
people like that.

They don't come up very often.