The first definitive biography of the iconic, notoriously private British fashion designer Alexander McQueen explores the connections between his dark work and even darker life. When forty-year-old Alexander McQueen committed suicide in February 2010, a shocked world mourned the loss. McQueen had risen from humble beginnings as the son of an East London taxi driver to scale the heights of fame, fortune, and glamour. He designed clothes for the world’s most beautiful women and royalty, most famously the Duchess of Cambridge, who wore a McQueen dress on her wedding day. He created a multimillion-dollar luxury brand that became a favorite with celebrities including Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. But behind the confident facade and bad-boy image, lay a sensitive soul who struggled to survive in the ruthless world of fashion. As the pressures of work intensified, McQueen became increasingly dependent on the drugs that contributed to his tragic end. Meanwhile, in his private life, his failure to find lasting love in a string of boyfriends only added to his despair. And then there were the dark secrets that haunted his sleep… A modern-day fairy tale infused with the darkness of a Greek tragedy, Alexander McQueen tells the complete sensational story, and includes never-before-seen photos. Those closest to the designer—his family, friends, and lovers—have spoken for the first time about the man they knew, a fragmented individual, a lost boy who battled to gain entry into a world that ultimately destroyed him. “There’s blood beneath every layer of skin,” McQueen once said. Andrew Wilson’s biography, filled with groundbreaking material, dispels myths, corrects inaccuracies, and offers new insights into McQueen’s private life and the source of his creative genius. “Presents a thorough and emotionally compelling exploration of the life, work, and inner demons of fashion designer Alexander McQueen....Wilson paints vivid portraits of McQueen’s family and friends....a fully realized representation of a complex and enigmatic artist.” ( Publishers Weekly ) [In] Andrew Wilson's magnificent biography...[Alexander McQueen] comes across as a modern-day Mozart, unpredictable, rebellious, kind, witty, clever, scatalogical, but always with the unique talent and creative genius shining through...bounds across the pages and is brought to life by extensive interviews with family and friends...McQueen has got in Wilson the biographer he deserves. ( The Independent (UK) ) “Wilson's compelling and heavily researched bio…has already been published to rave reviews in Britain.” ( Entertainment Weekly ) "Wilson's storytelling is crisp as he offers new insights into McQueen's short life...[and] provides unprecedented access to a misunderstood soul." ( Boston Globe ) “My work is like a biography of my own personality,” the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen said, a thought that informs the structure of this account of his life and work. Detailed discussion of his sometimes macabre runway shows reveals a man obsessed with death and spectacle and haunted by childhood sexual abuse. Wilson reads in McQueen’s clothes a complicated relationship with women. Some critics, observing the near-brutality of the shows—one featured a model whose mouth was splayed open by metal braces—charged McQueen with misogyny, but Wilson sees the more extreme costumes as “armor,” a “sartorial force field,” and, perhaps, an invitation to empowerment. ( The New Yorker ) Andrew Wilson is an award-winning journalist and author. His work has appeared in a wide variety of publications including the Guardian , the Washington Post , the Sunday Times , and the Smithsonian Magazine. He is the author of four acclaimed biographies, a book about the survivors of the Titanic, and the novels, The Lying Tongue, A Talent for Murder, A Different Kind of Evil , Death in a Desert Land. Alexander McQueen CHAPTER ONE A history of “much cruelty and dark deeds.” —Joyce McQueen When Lee Alexander McQueen was born, on 17 March 1969 at Lewisham Hospital in southeast London, he weighed only five pounds ten ounces. The doctors told his mother, Joyce, that his low weight could mean that he might have to be placed in an incubator, but he soon started to feed, and mother and baby returned home to the crowded family home at 43 Shifford Path, Wynell Road, Forest Hill. Although Joyce and Ron, in the words of their son Tony, “always said that he [Lee] was the only one they tried for,” the birth of the youngest of their six children did nothing to soothe the tense atmosphere in the McQueen household. “My dad had a breakdown in 1969, just as my mum gave birth,” said Lee’s brother Michael McQueen. “He was working too hard, a lot of hours as a lorry driver with six children, too many really.”1 His brother Tony, who was fourteen years old at the time, remembers noticing that one day his father went unnaturally quiet. “He was working seven days a week, he was hardly ever ho