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After shirking his father’s expectations that he go into a trade, McQueen went on to stage a brilliant takeover of the global fashion industry. This one man can be credited not only with changing the realm of design during his reign as the Rebel King, but also with shaping today’s fashion industry in its embrace of technology, its sociopolitical edge, and its democratisation into a global obsession rather than an elitist profession for a chosen few. And while McQueen was forever stretching and twisting the puppet strings, smashing the limits and offering fashion a view of its own potential, his personal life was left largely undiscussed. In order to create such change in an industry obsessed with itself, McQueen had to be drawing his influences from somewhere outside of fashion. And indeed he was. In the early days – as Lee changed to Alexander, and his collections MCQUEEN
who’d grown up misunderstood, anti-establishment, and always challenging his critics through shock. It was the time of new rave. Ecstasy had just become available and was rip-roaring through the London nightlife scene like no drug had before. It changed music, partying, everything, and – as orchestrated by McQueen – this new age of partying changed fashion, too.
McQueen the Man
began to make waves across the world – he was exactly the same boy