Even as the London Fashion Week and the rest of the world in style mourn the loss of Alexander McQueen,its his death more than his dying that shocks. At 40,the designer who made his millions courtesy of his shock value,took it too seriously by hanging himself. McQueens death has opened up many debates: the triteness of the fashion world is the easiest one. If you are in fashion you must be gay/on drugs Sadly,McQueen was all of the above and then some. But its still hotly contested whether McQueen was a genius. Toby Young,the author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People,who coincidentally interviewed McQueen years ago for Vanity Fair,writes in The Telegraph: Im always sceptical when the word genius is bandied about by the fashionista more or less everything is genius in their world,as in,Love that belt,darling. Its genius. He argues McQueen was no genius in the way Oscar Wilde or Jimi Hendrix was. And that genius or taste in fashion is decided upon by a few editors. I hate to admit Young isnt entirely far out. Much of what McQueen was,and became,was attributed to his personality. His battle with his weight,struggling to cope with his homosexuality and his modest roots (his father was a taxi driver) were the lard-to-luxe stories we all love. To say his creativity was boundless should be fuelled by the fact that he was already a success in feeding into a world that worshipped the outlandish. Even the idiotic. That and the fact he was hotly promoted by two very significant women friends. The English eccentric Isabella Blow bought out his entire graduation collection,parked him in her house and held several trunk shows for him from her home. And Sarah Jessica Parker,hot from the success of her Sex and the City shows,wore a McQueen gown in tartan to pick up an Emmy,turning McQueen,nothing more until then than the hooligan of British fashion,to a moneymaking designer in the US. There are several designers in India who have less talent and more personality to keep their careers on the right track. My favourite example is Sabyasachi,often misunderstood to be the Greatest Indian Designer Alive. While hes earned his salami making rich Marwari women dress as their domestics do,his genius is ersatz to Anamika Khannas a Kolkata colleague who got left behind for poor marketing skills and dull fashion shows. Manish Arora stole the crown of lenfant terrible from Rohit Bal when he presented a collection celebrating same-sex love (along with a soundtrack that had Kurt Cobain mouthing Ladies and Gentlemen,I have done drugs and I have loved it). We all applauded and fell in love with the skinny man who had Ladies Tailor tattooed on an arm. Theres more talent in Savio Jon and Arjun Saluja than Ive seen in too many big names,but they remain not too far from where they began. In fashion,genius is often misunderstood as outré its just the nature of the beast. And had McQueen been a little less of a prima donna and a little more straitlaced,he would have probably died a little less rich. namratanow@gmail.com (We begin a weekly column on style and high life)
