Ann Ray
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
The documentary medium was born for telling the story of Alexander McQueen. After all, who better to play this most outrageous, wild and sensitive of designers than the man himself?
It’s certainly the view of that film-makers Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui have taken in creating their moving documentary, McQueen, which focuses on the man behind the darkness, romance and beauty.
“If the subject matter is so amazing and you have visuals, visual support and stories to tell, then I think a documentary is better than a biopic because there’s no one better than the real people to tell the story,” Bonhôte told us. “Audiences don’t care if it has slick imagery; they care about the emotion of that visual or footage, whether it shows them something they didn’t know.”
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
McQueen’s tragic life has been highly-publicised – the working-class East End boy done good who trained at Savile Row and disrupted the fashion industry by putting his darkest inner torment and anguish in plain view. We’re all aware of his theatrical, ground-breaking shows that are discussed with hallowed reverence among fashion circles. We also all know how it tragically ended and how bereft the fashion industry has been since. McQueen’s life has been immortalised with a musical, two biographies and a full-length feature film with Jack O’Connell cast as the starring role - although he’s since exited the project.
And yet this latest documentary is among the most accurate, sensitive and moving. Using his collections as cornerstones, the documentary features candid interviews with colleagues, friends and even family of McQueen, who was known as Lee to the people he loved. His friend and mentor, Isabella Blow, told him to use the name Alexander as his brand name as she felt it sounded more upmarket.
Ann Ray
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
“It’s still incredibly raw; Lee’s death left a void so there were a lot of difficult conversations,” said Ettedgui. “There were a lot of people who genuinely loved him – eight years is not a long time really when you’re talking about grief. The second thing is that there has been a lot of sensationalist tabloid stuff written about him – the two biographies, both of which are great in their own way, bare all in a way that is almost too much for a lot of his friends who didn’t want him exposed in that way.”
Unsurprisingly, there were some who declined to feature in the documentary – the most notable is his successor, Sarah Burton, for whom Lee was a long-term mentor. A meeting between the film-makers and the brand did take place, but ultimately Burton refused. Through archive material, she is still seen by her boss’ side.
“Quite rightly [the brand] said, ‘no, we want to concentrate on Sarah Burton and the future,’” said Ettedgui. “From our point of view, we went into that meeting feeling ambivalent because we didn’t want to make a brand film; we wanted to make a film about McQueen.”
Ann Ray
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
One of the biggest questions that the two were asked when approaching their subject’s friends, family and colleagues was, ‘who are you to make this documentary?’ Although Ettedgui’s father is Joseph Ettedgui, the late founder of the British brand Joseph, neither film-makers knew McQueen nor have strong ties to the house. However, it’s this distance from the designer that enabled them to their job well.
“The greatest film-makers don’t have to know the subject first-hand; it’s about having the ability to learn a lot, but to remain objective,” said Bonhôte. “We’re not involved with him on a personal level. We could be objective, and I think the audience needs that. We had the emotional sensitivity that this documentary needed, but enough distance from the industry and the man to approach some of the more difficult subjects without being scared or upset by them.”
Nonetheless, the film-makers followed the mantra “emotion over information” and the result is a compelling, powerful insight into the designer’s life. Rare interviews have been sourced in which McQueen talks about his motivations and ambitions, and archive catwalk footage showing his earliest shows which have the same jaw-dropping appeal as they did when they were first seen in the 90s and early Noughties.
Getty Images
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
While most of us know about McQueen as a creative visionary, fewer will appreciate his business acumen. The documentary highlights how he used his role as Givenchy creative director to finance his still emerging label in London, and later how he haggled a lucrative partnership deal with the Gucci Group in 2000 - the rivals of his Givenchy bosses at LVMH – considered a hugely provocative move. Gucci acquired a 51 per cent stake and ensured that McQueen would still have “full and complete freedom”, yet supplied him with the financial backing needed to grow his brand.
“He was on the level of Zuckerberg,” said Bonhôte. “He played those conglomerates. He sold 51 per cent of his company aged just 31, kept creative control and was given a huge amount of money for his shows, along with a very healthy salary. Not bad for the kid who dropped out of school at 15. That fashion fight between the Gucci Group and LVMH could have been a movie in itself.”
“He was so ahead of the time,” adds Ettedgui. “Look at the Highland Rape collection, which was considered misogynistic at the time. You can tease out themes within that which fit in with what’s happening now with Time’s Up. He was vocal about mental health too with the Voss collection which was set in a makeshift asylum – he was genuinely a visionary.”
Aflo Ann Ray
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
There’s one interview with McQueen that will feel perhaps uncomfortable for the brand’s current staff – when asked who he’d want his successor to be, he replies "No one". He adds emphatically, “Burn the house down."
“I think he did mean that because he felt that he was the core of the shows,” says Ettedgui. “That said, Sarah Burton is seen working at his side in the documentary and my feeling is that he would have loved that they had the balls to appoint someone with no name, someone who no one knew of outside of McQueen to be the person who took it on. And she pays tribute to what he did through the archive. This is of course pure personal speculation.”
Gary Wallis
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Given that McQueen was famously anti-establishment (legend has it that he sewed expletive insults into the lining of Prince Charles’ jackets when he was working on Savile Row), what would he have made of his label’s new reputation as a favourite of the royal family? Burton’s most famous commission came by way of the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress in 2011.
“He always made wedding dresses for posh girls,” said Ettedgui. “He was bought in via the backdoor by Isabella Blow because he couldn’t go through the foyer of Vogue because he looked too rough. Plum Sykes, for example, he’d take her into the loo, measure her up and eventually made her wedding dress. He enjoyed that because it was pure couture and he liked that side of what he did.”
We’ll never know for sure, but for anyone with an interest in fashion or just talent of the highest form, McQueen is a must.
McQueen is out in cinemas from 8 June
A host of stars from Britain and the US have attended the Royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. George Clooney and his wife Amal were among the first spotted, with Oprah Winfrey, David Beckham and his wife Victoria, Serena Williams, Elton John and many more in attendance.
ROYAL watchers were convinced Kate Middleton hadn’t bothered buying a new frock for Meghan and Harry’s big day, instead recycling an old favourite which she’d worn a number of times before.
The Duchess of Cambridge seemingly showed up in the same primrose yellow, wool silk tailored Alexander McQueen coat that she’s sported on three previous public engagements.
She was seen in the outfit at Princess Charlotte’s christening in 2015, the Trooping the Colour in 2016 and at an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele in 2017.
But we can now reveal Kate had actually bought a new dress, albeit one that is virtually identical to the frock it was mistaken for.
Royal fan, royaladdicted2, writing on Instagram, pointed out the difference, explaining her Royal Wedding dress had buttons on the cuffs, whereas the virtually identical one did not.
Kate completed her look on the day with a pair of Jimmy Choos and a hat designed by Philip Treacy.
However, despite looking lovely, her choice of pale primrose yellow definitely raised some eyebrows.
Kate looked gorgeous as she chaperoned the bridesmaids, including daughter Princess Charlotte, as they arrived on steps of St George’s Chapel in Windsor.
The Duchess did the same for her sister Pippa Middleton at her wedding to James Matthews last year where she wore an understated nude pink, long-sleeved Alexander McQueen frock.
Bride Meghan wore a stunning bespoke white silk Givenchy gown and a 15ft veil embroidered with flowers of the Commonwealth.
She and Prince Harry beamed with happiness as they were officially declared husband and wife.
The 33-year-old royal had been overcome with emotion at the sight of his bride - telling Meghan “you look amazing” as the couple met at the altar.
This article originally appeared on The Sun and is republished with permission.
It took one year of conversations with directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui to convince Alexander Lee McQueen’s former assistant, Sebastian Pons, to participate in McQueen, the documentary exploring the late designer’s legacy.
“I wanted to make sure it was going to be a respectful project, and a good portrait of the real Lee, not the other Lee,” Pons tells Vogue shortly before the film’s June 8 release date. “I was worried because Lee was my friend, Lee was my colleague, Lee was a lot to me, and I still like to protect him.”
Advertisement
Though the scar left from the designer’s suicide in February 2010 is still open – “I felt it had almost healed but then [Bonhôte and Ettedgui] start digging” – the voice of McQueen inside Pons’s head convinced him to share his memories. “It was so hard, but Lee told me to be strong in life.”
A First Look At The McQueen Documentary A First Look At The McQueen Documentary
Read next The McQueen Documentary Tells The Story Of The People Who Carry His Legacy The McQueen Documentary Tells The Story Of The People Who Carry His Legacy
The pair met at Central St Martins in 1990-1991, when Pons was an undergraduate and McQueen was finishing his MA degree. “I remember talking to him in the canteen,” Pons recalls of the daily minutiae of college, and watching with wonder as McQueen created his final collection. Years later, McQueen came across Pons’s graduate portfolio and commissioned him to create prints for his Hunger collection. “I used the Saint Martins’ printers, because Lee didn't have the facilities – or the money.” In 1997, when Pons graduated from his own MA programme, he went straight to work with McQueen at Givenchy. “I finished school on Wednesday, and on the Friday, I was taking a plane to Paris.”
Anna Ray
Advertisement
The home video footage of McQueen’s rag tag gang running riot in the house of Givenchy, while enjoying the perks of having a private driver and a fancy apartment, is the focus of some of the film’s brilliantly candid scenes. “Givenchy called us the 'trash gang', because we were wearing bleached, slashed jeans and rock‘n’roll tees in a couture house, but we just thought ‘enough of the French!’” Pons laughs. “Eventually [the atelier staff] said, ‘OK, these guys are crazy, but they are doing some spectacular stuff.'”
Pons stayed in Paris for 18 months on McQueen’s mission to gather information. “He said to me, 'Sebastian, you have to look at everything, you have to suck everything in, you have to make a lot of contacts, and then bring all this information back to our McQueen'", he recounts. During that time, McQueen taught him “to not to be afraid of the unknown, to not always fall into the comfort zone of what we know, and to make decisions quickly” - a resolve he carries with him to this day.
Anna Ray
Read next The Duchess And Meghan Markle Share A McQueen Moment The Duchess And Meghan Markle Share A McQueen Moment
Back in London as a permanent fixture at the house of Alexander McQueen, “Lee pushed the team into the unknown and encouraged us to mix weird elements into everything”, but Pons’s life was dominated by his boss’s mood. “Lee didn't come to work every day,” he tries to explain. “There would be two weeks of nothing, then some days he would be at his creative peak. He had to be balanced, he had to be calm and relaxed in order to perform, because he was so emotional. So emotional! Everything affected him – especially love.”
“If Lee’s love life was good, his designs were good,” he continues. “But if his love life was dark, his collections were dark.” Pons and the rest of the design team waited until McQueen’s temperament was favourable to show him the designs they had been working on. “We knew when the good days were good, and the bad days were bad,” he sighs, but, as time went on, it was difficult for Pons to tread the line between employee and confidante.
The McQueen Documentary Tells The Story Of The People Who Carry His Legacy The McQueen Documentary Tells The Story Of The People Who Carry His Legacy
In 2000, Pons left McQueen to pursue his own fashion career in New York. “It was bad, because it was like a divorce,” he explains. “I got upset, he got upset… we didn’t talk it through.” But when Pons picked up the phone to call him two-and-a-half years later, it was as though time had never passed. “I loved the wild side of him from the beginning, and he knew I was devoted to him,” Pons shares. “I could talk about the Dante sleeve, or that piece from Highland Rape… But if I thought a collection was crap, I told him it was crap.” The foundation of their relationship was always, he says, honesty.
Advertisement
When asked what he misses most about this brotherly bond, Pons falters. Eight years on, it is still his laughter. “I miss Lee – not Alexander McQueen – I miss Lee. I miss his laughter... to just be with him.”
It’s this devastatingly honest account of a man that misses his friend, and the similar stories from McQueen’s colleagues, family and acquaintances, that makes the film such a sensitive depiction of a true individual, one who gave so much to British fashion, and to the people surrounding him.
There have been many attempts to tell Lee Alexander McQueen’s story, but few have provided such an incisive portrayal as a new documentary released this week, entitled simply, McQueen. It’s an emotional telling of his remarkable journey from East End working class boy to one of the world’s most celebrated-and controversial- designers, until his suicide in 2010.
His story is recounted by the friends, family and collaborators in whom he inspired such fierce loyalty. The film features McQueen’s sister, Janet, who sheds tears as she remembers the triumphs and torment of her little brother. Sebastian Pons, McQueen’s former assistant, gave directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui permission to use...
