Flamboyant British fashion designer Alexander McQueen was found dead at his London home after apparently committing suicide barely a week after his mother died, police and reports said.
Emergency services were called to the 40-year-old’s home in central London on Thursday and he was pronounced dead at the scene, while Scotland Yard said the death was not being treated as suspicious. Reports said he hanged himself.
A spokeswoman for the bad boy of British fashion, who rapidly built an international reputation for his outrageous creations, said: “Mr McQueen was found dead this morning at his home.”
PHOTO: AFP
“At this stage it is inappropriate to comment on this tragic news beyond saying that we are devastated and are sharing a sense of shock and grief,” a statement on his label’s Web site said.
McQueen, a four-time winner of the British designer of the year award, was creative director of his own label, which was bought out by Gucci and was one of Britain’s most lauded fashion designers.
His death came days before London fashion week and ahead of Paris fashion week next month.
Media reports said his mother Joyce died last week, and in a comment on McQueen’s Twitter page last Sunday he wrote that he had had an “awful week, but my friends have been great, but now I have to somehow pull myself together.”
The Times newspaper reported that his mother was to be buried yesterday.
McQueen’s close friend and fashion icon Isabella Blow killed herself three years ago at the age of 48. Suffering from cancer and depression, she died of a drug overdose after telling friends she was going out shopping.
Tributes poured in after Thursday’s death was announced.
German couture legend Karl Lagerfeld told reporters: “I knew him very little but knew his work, which brought him a lot of success. I found his work very interesting and never banal.”
“There was always some attraction to death, his designs were sometimes dehumanized,” Lagerfeld said. “Who knows, perhaps after flirting with death too often, death attracts you.”
The death was reported shortly after 10am. Seven hours later, the body was brought out of his home on a stretcher and loaded into a private ambulance.
Born in London’s East End into a working-class family — his father was a taxi driver — McQueen rose to fame after graduating from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, a hotbed of British fashion, in 1991. McQueen cut his teeth as a tailor in Savile Row, where legend has it that he left his distinctive mark — in the form of hand-written obscenities -- in the lining of a jacket for Prince Charles, heir to the British throne.
After spells with designers Romeo Gigli and Koji Tatsuno, he started his own label and quickly became a controversial figure.
He designed the famous “bumster” trousers, which displayed the cleavage between model’s buttocks in a parody of the low-slung trousers worn by workers on London building sites.
After earning the title of best British designer of the Year in 1996, he moved to France as chief designer at Givenchy, where he continued to shock.
McQueen’s position in the mainstream was assured in 2000, however, when the Gucci Group bought out 51 percent of his label, and the past decade has seen him launch flagship stores in New York, London and Milan.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their