Top British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who dressed some of the world’s most beautiful women, was found dead at his home yesterday, just days after he mourned the death of his mother.
The body of the 40-year-old designer, who was due to display his latest collection in Paris next month, was discovered in his Mayfair flat in London shortly after 10am, though it is still not clear how the alarm was raised.
The Metropolitan police, who were called to the scene, did not confirm how Mr McQueen had died. They said: “A postmortem examination and inquest will take place in due course. The death is being treated as non-suspicious.”
Mr McQueen was very close to his mother, Joyce, and was distraught at her death on February 2nd. He expressed his grief to his fans in a number of messages on the Twitter social networking site.
Late on Sunday night he left another, saying: “Sunday evening been an f****** awful week but my friends have been great but now I have to somehow pull myself together . . . and finish with the HELLS ANGLES PROLIFIC DEAMONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Mr McQueen was born in the East End of London and was the youngest of six children.
A regular recipient of the Designer of the Year award, Mr McQueen, once nicknamed as “the hooligan of English fashion”, produced clothes that were worn by actors Sarah Jessica Parker, Sandra Bullock and Eva Green, and models, such as Kate Moss.
He left school aged just 16 and went to work as an apprentice for Savile Row tailors Anderson and Sheppard after he watched a TV programme about the lack of newcomers to the trade. He went on to make suits for Prince Charles.
In 1996 his appointment at just 26 as head designer of Givenchy, one of Paris’s most famous fashion houses, caused consternation in France over such a prestigious post being filled by a foreigner. He left the company five years later.
In 1998 he caused a storm when he used a double-leg amputee to model some of his clothes, while another collection titled, “Highland Rape”, where models wore ripped lace shirts and kilts, was, he said, a reflection of English exploitation of Scotland.
In 2000 Mr McQueen, who was homosexual, and his partner George Forsyth held a non-legally-binding marriage ceremony on board a yacht owned by Kate Moss.