Information On Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen was born in the East End of London in 1970 and he was the son of a taxi driver. Alexander McQueen fast rose through the fashion ranks to become one of the leading lights of international design.

Alexander McQueen graduated from Central St Martins College of Art & Design in 1991. With his display of such flair and innovation designs Alexander McQueen was immediately awarded an apprenticeship with Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard. Alexander McQueen went on to work for Romeo Gigli and Koji Tatsuno, before opening his own studio in East London. Soon Alexander McQueen managed to secure tabloid headlines with the launch of his fashion designs, while his brilliantly crafted and often outrageous designs attracted a little but fiercely loyal clientele, including such influential fashion figures as stylist Isabella Blow, who was sitting on the front row of his show.

In October 1996  Alexander McQueen  was named Best British Designer of the Year for the first time. Days later, he was also named John Galliano's successor as the new chief designer at Givenchy. What recommended him to the 40-year-old French couture house was his "brilliant creativity and technical mastery". In 1997, a year in which Alexander McQueen produced four collections for Givenchy and two for his own label. Alexander McQueen shared the Best British Designer award with Galliano. But it is Alexander McQueen’s carefully propagated image - as the raspberrying bad boy of fashion - which made him a star in his own right, winning him such rock 'n' roll clients as David Bowie and The Prodigy's Keith Flint.

Arriving at Givenchy, Alexander McQueen had the hubris to slam its founder, Hubert de Givenchy, as "irrelevant". As if in response, his first collection for the couture house was universally slated even by Alexander McQueen himself. "I know it was crap," he told US Vogue in October 1997, promising to make amends the following season.

Despite the shock tactics, however, Alexander McQueen is roundly recognised as a highly innovative designer, with superb tailoring skills particularly by his new bosses at the Gucci Group. In December 2000, shortly after Alexander McQueen voiced his malaise with LVMH, Gucci confirmed that it had acquired 51 per cent of Alexander McQueen 's own-name business, enabling him at last to loose himself from the Givenchy contract he claimed had constrained his creativity.