I found myself treasuring an old April 1998 issue of The Face on my desk today, the McQueen cover staring straight at me as a bleak reminder of what a talented and inspirational man we have lost to such unexplainable reasons.
But after reading the reasons why McQueen was on the cover of The Face, I realized why he never could nor ever will be replaced. So take youself away, the same as I did this afternoon, into The Face and back in the year of 1998. The peak. I think myself lucky to have lived and breathed the same air as the supposed bad-boy of fashion, I really do. So here I stand, with these reasons alone and join the mass by saying ‘the man was a genius’. It was almost as though he had a direct line to God all along.
* 10 REASONS WHY MCQUEEN IS ON THE COVER OF THE FACE.
1. Because he leans over and kisses his mother, Joyce, when he’s taking his bows on the catwalk.
2. Because everyone else did All Saints.
3. Because when he trained at Savile Row, he sewed a label inside a jacket designed for the Prince of Wales saying ‘I am a ‘c**t’.
4. Or was it ‘McQueen was here’?
5. Because in interviews he would always say things like ‘I don’t know whether I can survive in fashion without murdering somebody’.
6. Because Suzy Menkes, one of the few fashion journalists who knows what she’s talking about, wrote that he’s ‘not just a fine tailor with a soaring imagination, but one of those rare designers who catches the spirit of the times’.
7. Because ‘it’s unlikely that a Briton would achieve what he has, but for a pupil from an all-male comprehensive in deepest Newham it is incredible’ (his headmaster Richard Jarman, Rokeby Comprehensive)
8. Because he turned up in Milan on a whim, with nowhere to stay and hardly any money, and blagged a job with Romeo Gigli.
9. Because he puts art in fashion and takes fashion’s head out of it’s arse.
10. Just because, okay?
My thoughts go out to his father and close friends, there is nothing harder than being left by someone you love. Rest in Peace Lee.
*The Face. April 1998 Issue.
