Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin

Why I picked it up I lived in the New York area in 2011, when Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty was on at the Met. I must have gone at least 5 or 6 times, I was completely enamored with that show. It was the first time I had ever considered fashion as art, with clothes as just a medium. So many of his pieces, ideas, and feats of tailoring lodged in my brain and set my imagination aflame. I loved all the historical and mythological references. I idly wondered not that I’d shown any inclination for it ever before if I’d missed out by never considering a career in fashion design. (After reading this book, the short answer is no!) But I didn’t know anything about the man behind the art, other than that he’d killed himself. So the moment I saw this biography on a shelf, I knew I had to read it and better get to know the creative genius whose clothes could fill me with so much emotion.

The good The book definitely fulfilled its purpose of giving me a much better sense of who Alexander McQueen was as a person. It filled in lots of details about his life and the struggles and people that shaped it. And of course it’s always fun to read a story about how someone comes up from humble origins to make a huge success of themselves. And the costs of that success. So I definitely got what I came for, in that sense.

The less good It felt like this book had no narrative cohesion. Each chapter represented a period in McQueen’s life and read like a fact file of every interesting interview scrap Andrew Wilson had managed to gather about that time. It felt like reading the highlighted bits of somebody’s research notes. All seven of McQueen’s boyfriends blended together in my head, as did many of his friends and colleagues.

But even more, I felt like some things, important things, were stated over and over and over again without being properly explained. For example, the pressures the fashion industry put on McQueen. There were plenty of quotes from people around him saying he felt trapped or seemed to be under a lot of pressure. Other people commented that they wouldn’t wish success in fashion on their worst enemy. And the whole time a part of me was screaming, WHY, EXACTLY??!!

You’re really left to sort of guess at it from the odd scraps here and there. Was it the demanding production schedule that forced him to put together so many shows per year? Was it because a lot of people did cocaine? Was it the need to satisfy his financial backers? Is fashion really that much more pressurized than any other industry? There’s a glut of anecdote, sentences and quotes that touch on it repeatedly throughout the book. But the author never really goes farther to explain the more big picture themes in any sort of coherent or satisfying way.

I think a better book would have been grouped thematically instead of chronologically: McQueen’s family, McQueen’s love life, McQueen’s professional life, McQueen’s party life, etc. It would have allowed for an in-depth look at what was going on in each of those areas, rather than just presenting a mass of quotes and anecdotes chronologically.

Excellent biography of Lee Alexander McQueen. I’ve always been interested in fashion, and McQueen particularly, and I devoured this book. It is written so well and goes from his childhood to his beginning into fashion at Saint Martins School into his own label and Gucci. Loved the pictures, and the reference to a website with most of his collections on video. I knew how it was going to end and I didn’t want that for such a talented man. Wish he was with us now to give us more of his extraordinary work. I would definitely recommend this to the fashion minded.

I’m still reading this book, the first 20 plus pages was all about the spooky stories his mom told him about their family’s history which gives you so much information that in some point I thought okay… when I’m going to start reading about Mc Queen? Well, as much as I want to skip those pages, later on I realized Everything has a reason in this book, those stories sets the personality of Lee Mc Queen.

edgy. not for everybody. but it’s a peak into a creative, tragic life. amazing.

I like everything about Alexander McQueen. Its a great book to read if you have interest in learning about his life, relationships and a fashion icon.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member