Death Of A Titan

World famous fashion designer Alexander McQueen is dead, and although there has been no official statement as of yet, he apparently committed suicide by hanging himself in his London flat. At first glance, it is difficult to believe, as this was a man who over the last few years had established himself as a titan of the fashion industry.

The fact that he killed himself is not what is so remarkable. People of wealth and renown are as susceptible to deep dark periods of depression as the rest of us. His mother had just recently died, and his former patron and discoverer had herself committed suicide three years previously. Like they say, it's lonely at the top, and maybe the man just felt like he had no one or nothing left to live for. Grief and despair will put that kind of head trip on you, particularly if you are suffering from some form of clinical depression, which is still a greatly misunderstood but very real illness.

Still, his chosen method of self-execution is jaw dropping for a man of his stature. This is admittedly my own opinion, but the way in which a person kills himself tells a lot about him, or her as the case may be.

People who die by way of ingestion or injection of drugs, perhaps in combination with alcohol, or who die by cutting their wrists, are basically longing for a kind of peace they feel will never come their way.

Those who jump from a large edifice or engage in some other form of suicide are obviously, to me, wanting to make a statement. They perhaps have an exaggerated flair for the dramatic, as do those who simply put a gun to their head, though in that later case they are desirous of a quick and relatively painless solution to whatever problem vexes them.

But hanging? That is some intense self-loathing at work. This is a person who feels he has brought all his problems on himself, and is so burdened with guilt and despair over the idea, solving the problems are irrelevant. Such a person probably feels they do not deserve anything better than a macabre end.

Assuming this is really how Alexander McQueen died, and that he was not murdered, or the victim of some form of auto-erotic asphyxiation sex game gone horribly wrong, what could possibly have driven him to this point?

Perhaps it is not for us to say, but his death has taken the industry by total surprise. This would seem to suggest that if he had any such problems or hang-ups, he did a pretty good job of keeping it to himself. On the other hand, this was a man who had a client list that included such notables as Lady Gaga, Matthew Lambert, Beyonce Knowles, and other high-list members of the entertainment world who are so self-obsessed, they wouldn't have noticed if McQueen was bleeding out of his eyes so long as he didn't bleed on them.

He was a visionary, as seen in the following photos from the March 2010 issue of Vogue Magazine which envisioned a potential fashion of the future, from the website Million Looks and featuring model Freja Beha Erichsen.









Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, but it looks to me like the world lost an artist. Artists share their gift with the world, and in some cases, that is all they are able to give of themselves. Perhaps McQueen, following the death of his mother and feeling all alone in the world, felt he had nothing left to offer and nothing left to achieve. That can be a hard, bitter pill to swallow in its own right.