All language subtitles for McQueen_2018.WEB.eng

[dramatic music playing]

[static]

-[TV] Hussy all right?
-[dog barks]

-[McQueen] Sminky Pinky.
-[dog whines]

Meats.

No.

-[woman] You mean like a--
-Maids.

[woman] Maids? All right.

[TV] Special cleansers remove
sticky marks with less
smearing...

...pick up more dust.

That's it. No problem...

[TV] ...and some polishes
can smear...

[static]

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.

[woman] 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.

[man] 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.

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

[Hitchcock] 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.

[McQueen] 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.

[man] 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.

[woman] 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."

[man] 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.

[NASA archive]
Three, two, one. Ignition.

Liftoff.

[McKitterick] 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.

-[NASA 1] We copy you
on the ground.
-[NASA 2] 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. [laughs]

[Gigli] 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."

[laughing]

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.

[woman] 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."

[McQueen] 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?"

[Hillson] The course always
ended with the degree show.

No other college

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

[McKitterick] 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.

[Barton] 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.

[dramatic music playing]

[woman] The pieces went past me,

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

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

[music continues playing]

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.

[audience applause]

[man] How difficult
is it to discover genius?

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

[man] If you're interested
in the history

of late 20-century clothes,

Isabella Blow is a big player.

[Isabella] 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.

[Isabella] 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.

[dramatic music playing]

[music stops]

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.

[man] 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.

[screaming]

[music playing
in the background]

[woman] 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."

[woman] 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...

[laughs]

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...

[laughs]

[making violin sounds]

This is my pooch.

[Smith] 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?

[Chai-Hyde]
Just to be part of it,

be part of his vision, yeah.

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

-[McQueen] Warhol.
-[woman] Woo!

[McQueen] Yeah.

[woman] Dance for me.

Come on, keep it going.

[woman laughs]

[Smith] 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? [chuckles]
Good for Issie.

She was trying
to make him successful.

And she did.
Alexander McQueen is a brand.

[woman] 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.

[woman] She introduced him
to everyone. She championed him.

So I suppose
what initially started

as a work relationship for her
became a creative friendship.

[Groves] 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.

[Detmar] I just remember
the laughter,

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

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

[indistinct chatter]

You're a hungry little thing.

[Detmar] 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." [laughs]

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.

[bird squawks]

[gentle music playing]

[cries out]

[man] 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.

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

With Issie,
be as different as you can...
[chuckles] ...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.

[both laughing]

[Smith] 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.

[McQueen] 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.

[Groves] Lee had
started doing bumsters.

These were cut so low

that you could see
the model's pubic hair.

[McQueen] 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...

[Detmar] He told
that model Gabe,

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

[laughing]

It's just funny.
Naughty behavior.

You could give Alexander £500,

and he could produce
30 pieces of clothing.

[Detmar] 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.

[Chai-Hyde] Getting a tire
and running it over the suit.

[laughing]

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.

[Detmar] That's almost
the period

where I think
the madness really kicked in.

[McQueen] 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?"

[Groves] 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."

[McQueen] That's how it is.

People don't understand that.

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

[Groves] 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.

[McQueen] 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?
-[reporter] No...

It should have done.
That was the idea.

[McQueen] 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.

[McQueen] Oi!

[Joyce] He was far
from a bad boy.

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

[woman] Beautiful face, huh?

[Groves]
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."

[Joyce] 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. [laughing]

[man] From our granddads,
he got the sense of humor,

which was, at times, wicked.

[laughing]

[woman] 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.

[Chai-Hyde] Lee's father
is saying, "Sell your clothes
in Brick Lane,"

and never quite understanding
what Lee was doing.

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

but it never
worked out that way.

[interviewer laughs]

[man] 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.

[indistinct chatter]

[man] It's not that...

It makes it smell.

-[McQueen] Come here.
-No, I'm too ugly.

[McQueen] You broke the camera!
Yeah, I know.

[Groves] 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.

[Smith] 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.

[woman] She was looking to
genealogy of the McQueen family

and aimed at proving
that the McQueens

came from McQueens
of the Isle of Skye.

[Gary] It opened up his world.

He was born in Stratford,

but he knew there was
this other life for him,

which come from Scotland.

[Smith] She encouraged
the sort of fantasy
and excitement

of those stories,
and Lee went with it.

[McQueen] 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.

[tearing sound]

[woman] 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.

[Chai-Hyde] 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.

[Danan] He was also
very creative at night.

His adrenaline
was much more alive,

and we usually
used to put music.

[Chai-Hyde] 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.

[Smith] 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.

[Groves] 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.

[Gary] 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.

[Janet] Aunt Renee and Mum

made sure that the models
had some sandwiches.

Mum would have
probably done her sausage rolls.

[woman] We were all really,

as a group of young,
really cool English models,

so excited to see this
man that had this reputation.

[Janet] 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."

[dramatic music playing]

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?"

[Groves] They're not
easy garments to look at.

They do look like
something from a crime scene.

[Kidd] 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.

[female reporter]
Judith Church,
MP for Dagenham,

thought there was no excuse
for such a show.

[woman] 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.

[McQueen] 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.

[Groves] 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."

[Gary] 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.

[Gary] 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...

[Groves] 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.

[dramatic music playing]

[camera flash fires]

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."

[in French]

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.

[man] And so he said...
Why did he want you?

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

[man] Yeah.

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

[both laugh]

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.

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

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

[McQueen] 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.

[Chai-Hyde] Very talented people
that he brought with him to
Givenchy.

What a team, man.

[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.
[scoffs]

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.

[McQueen] Where did you buy
this, in Japan?

[indistinct chatter]

Really?

[indistinct chatter]

[in French] Paris...

-[laughing]
-Woo!

[Murray] 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.

[McQueen] Statue.

[Murray] There's Sebastian Pons.

[McQueen] 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.

[McQueen] 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.

[McQueen] 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?

[Leane] 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.

[Murray] We had
this really nice flat.

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

[McQueen] God,
that's pretty scary.

[Costin] Thinking about it now,
it was tiny.

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

I'd be on the sofa.

[McQueen shouts]

[McQueen] Sebastian.

[shrieks] Ooh, language!

[laughing]

I always ended up
sleeping in Lee's room

because Lee was
always collapsing on the sofa.

[Sebastian] Lee.

-You changed the pillow.
-[McQueen] Yeah, fucking right.

[laughing]

We had a driver,
so we got driven everywhere.

[McQueen] Wait a minute.
He gone blind today.

Say hello
to the people of England.

[laughter]

Such fun.

Could do some funny tricks,
sort of.

Oh, I'm on speed, baby.

[laughing]

[Sebastian] 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?

[McQueen calls and laughs]

[Sebastian] When we arrived,
I think they were in shock,

the way we dress,
the way we work,

and the jokes we made.

[Costin] 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.

[McQueen]
Here I have my own office.

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

[chuckles] 'Cause I want it,
I want it, I want it...
so I ask for it.

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

[man] Were they
surprised that you were chosen?

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

[laughter]

[Pons] 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.

[Murray] He was trying
to find his feet there.

Obviously had to make
a huge impression

because it was
his first collection.

[Pons] 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."

[McQueen] 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.

[Pons] 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.

[McQueen] 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.

[De Londres in French]

[chuckles]

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

and I just get the scissors
and go whack it off

and they go... [silent]

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

[Chai-Hyde] 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.

[McQueen] 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.

[Pons] 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.

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

is not an easy task.

[Costin] The first couture show
had the theme
of the Golden Fleece.

Jason and the Argonauts.

[Murray] 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.

[dramatic music playing]

[Jurnjack] 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.

[woman] 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.

[applause]

[Pons] 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.

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

-No, that's true. Well done.
-[both laugh]

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...
-[both laugh]

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.

[Isabella] 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.

[Detmar] 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.

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

[no audible dialog]

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

in this room.

These designers
think that you made me...

-[Isabella] 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?"

-[Isabella] 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.

-[laughter]
-I'm joking. [laughs]

[Murray] 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."

[Detmar] 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.

[Detmar] 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."
[laughs]

[McQueen] 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.

[laughs]

It's a jungle out there.

[Pons] 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."

[Costin] 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.

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

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

[Jurnjack] 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.

[Costin] 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.

[audience clamoring]

[woman] It was crazy.

People literally fighting
to see the catwalk.

[Murray]
Lee running from model to model

and screaming
and shouting at everyone.

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

[Chai-Hyde] Always moving,
always dressing,
always stressing.

Stressing and dressing,
actually, together.

[woman backstage] They're all
standing by, ready to go.

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

Yeah. Yep.

[Chai-Hyde] One of the models
was late.

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

[Kidd] 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... [growl]

[dramatic music playing]

[Costin] 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.

[Pons] 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.

[Costin] 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.

[Costin] 'Cause there were
a pile of crashed cars,

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

[Kidd] The car's actually
on fire.

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

[Costin] Everyone thought
it was part of the show.

[Kidd] He's going,
"Don't you -- dare

go out there
with fire extinguishers."

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

[Shaw] Had that not
been rectified, that whole tent

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

[Smith] That's back to typical,
wonderful,

mad, brilliant Lee.

[dramatic music playing]

[music stops]

[reporter] 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.

[Chai-Hyde] 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.

[Pons] 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.

[Pons] 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."

[piano music playing]

[Chai-Hyde] 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.

[Bennett] 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.

[McQueen] 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.

[music continues playing]

[McQueen] 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.

[music continues playing]

[Janet] 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.

[Chai-Hyde] 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.

[Smith] 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."

[Murray] 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.

[Chai-Hyde] 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.

[Chai-Hyde] 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.

[Detmar] 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?

[McQueen] 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.

[Murray] 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.

[Murray] 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.

[Smith] 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.

[McQueen] 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.

[Smith] 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."

[McKitterick] 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.

[McKitterick]
Six in the morning.

[woman]
No, don't do that to her.

[McQueen]
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.

[woman] I don't like how they...

Take them off now.

[Chai-Hyde] 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.

[Pons]
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.

[McQueen] Sebastian.

Come on, you ugly bitch.

[McQueen laughs sarcastically]

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. [laughs] 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... [exhales] 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.

[Kidd] 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.

[Bennett] For the Voss show,
the original concept
was the padded cell.

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

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

[Bennett] 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." [laughs]

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.

[Bennett] We didn't know
quite what was gonna expect,

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

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

[eerie noises]

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

The models can't see
the audience at all.

[Olley] 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.

[wailing voices]

[Chai-Hyde] 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,"
[fingers click]
as he would do that.

He absorbed things
like a sponge,

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

[wild laugh]

[people whistling]

-[monitor beeping]
-[heartbeat]

[McQueen] 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.

[beeping turns solid]

[Olley] 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?

[applause and whistling]

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?

[woman] 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.

[Chai-Hyde]
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.

[laughter]

[McQueen] Au revoir, Givenchy.

[uplifting music playing]

[music stops]

[Isabella] Dodo.

[indistinct chatter]

[dogs growl]

[Detmar] What's he doing?

[McQueen] 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.

[Janet] I'm grateful
that we had that time together.

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

[McQueen]
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 [laughs]

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?

[McQueen] 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.

[mumbles and laughs]

[Gary] 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.

[McQueen] 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.

[applause]

[somber music playing]

[reporter] What does fashion
mean to you?

My life.

[Detmar] Issie died proud.

She died having achieved
beyond her wildest dreams.

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

including Alexander, huge blow.

[bell tolls]

[Detmar] 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.

[Detmar] 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.

[Isabella] 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.

[Detmar] 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.

[Detmar] 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.

[thump of wings flapping]

[tender music playing]

[Hillson] 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.

[Viglezio] 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.

[woman] 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.

[Janet] I think
it had a big effect on Lee.

After Issie passed away,

he was in a really dark place.

[Pons] 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."

[applause]

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.

[Gary] 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.

[violin music playing]

[Janet] 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.

[applause]

[McQueen] 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.

[Gary] 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.

[McQueen] If I ever get
that old and I'm still around

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

[man] Yeah.
No one'll work there. [laughs]

[reporter] 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?

[Janet] 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."

[Viglezio]
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...

[both laugh]

[violin music continues]

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."

[Bennett]
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.

[Gary] The idea
behind Plato's Atlantis

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

[Gary] 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.

[Pons] 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...

[stammering]
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."

[somber music playing]

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."

[dramatic music playing]

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.

[Pons] 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.

[applause]

[Janet] 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.

[somber music playing]

[Gary] After my grandmother,
Joyce, had passed away...

he was in really bad shape.

[Janet] 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.

[Janet] 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.

[TV 1] The fashion
world is in shock tonight

over the news
that Alexander McQueen...

[TV 2] Alexander McQueen,
the darling
of British fashion,

has been found
dead after apparent...

[TV 3] Alexander McQueen...

[overlapping TV
reports in multiple languages]

[Pons]
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.

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

and my partner
picked me up and said,

I've got--
[tearfully] 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.

[piano music playing]

[Sykes] 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.

[Chai-Hyde] His clothes made me
feel that you could be feminine,

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

I'm a bitch."

[laughing]

[Pons] Things I remember best
is seeing him working.

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

[Sykes] One outfit
would just be insane,

and then the next one
would just be genius.

[Danan] Nobody could create
emotions in a show

like Lee McQueen did.

[Gary] 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.

[Costin] 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.

[chamber music playing]

[chamber music stops suddenly,
piano music]

[music ends]