to sir with love

This one is particularly hard. Alexander McQueen commits suicide at the age of 40, months after one of his most triumphant collections in memory, top-full of smarts and artisanship, beautiful far beyond yr typical, flouncy color story.

Where some played Gothic, McQueen meant it. From the start, straight out of the East End and St. Martins, he dressed women (and then men) to provoke, to be strange and difficult, displaced in this world. In the bring-on-the-glamorous-decades middle 90s (sort of owned by Brit rival Galliano), his wicked, Futurist/Victoriana/Punk bristled me. But as he softened slightly and I hardened, I caught up and realized he was a genius.

Upon this news, one thinks, with a certain chill, about the solitary/polar path of an artist, the severity, the high and low that can lend so much to work, successful work, but also sap health and happiness.

Be well in the next.