Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano

by Dana Thomas

More than two decades ago, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen arrived on the fashions scene when the business was in an artistic and economic rut. Both wanted to revolutionize fashion in a way no one had in decades. They shook the establishment out of its bourgeois, minimalist stupor with daring, sexy designs. They turned out landmark collections in mesmerizing, theatrical shows that retailers and critics still gush about and designers continue to reference.

Their approach to fashion was wildly different—Galliano began as an illustrator, McQueen as a Savile Row tailor. Galliano led the way with his sensual bias-cut gowns and his voluptuous hourglass tailoring, which he presented in romantic storybook-like settings. McQueen, though nearly ten years younger than Galliano, was a brilliant technician and a visionary artist who brought a new reality to fashion, as well as an otherworldly beauty. For his first official collection at the tender age of twenty-three, McQueen did what few in fashion ever achieve: he invented a new silhouette, the Bumster.

They had similar backgrounds: sensitive, shy gay men raised in tough London neighborhoods, their love of fashion nurtured by their doting mothers. Both struggled to get their businesses off the ground, despite early critical success. But by 1997, each had landed a job as creative director for couture houses owned by French tycoon Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH.
 
Galliano’s and McQueen’s work for Dior and Givenchy and beyond not only influenced fashion; their distinct styles were also reflected across the media landscape. With their help, luxury fashion evolved from a clutch of small, family-owned businesses into a $280 billion-a-year global corporate industry. Executives pushed the designers to meet increasingly rapid deadlines. For both Galliano and McQueen, the pace was unsustainable. In 2010, McQueen took his own life three weeks before his womens' wear show.

The same week that Galliano was fired, Forbes named Arnault the fourth richest man in the world. Two months later, Kate Middleton wore a McQueen wedding gown, instantly making the house the world’s most famous fashion brand, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened a wildly successful McQueen retrospective, cosponsored by the corporate owners of the McQueen brand. The corporations had won and the artists had lost.

In her groundbreaking work Gods and Kings, acclaimed journalist Dana Thomas tells the true story of McQueen and Galliano. In so doing, she reveals the revolution in high fashion in the last two decades—and the price it demanded of the very ones who saved it.

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction, Biography, Art, Memoir, History, Fashion History

1 pages, Audio CD

First published August 14, 2014

About the author

Dana Thomas is the author of Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes, Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, and the New York Times bestseller Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, all published by Penguin Press. She began her career writing for the Style section of The Washington Post, and for fifteen years she served as a cultural and fashion correspondent for Newsweek in Paris. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times Style section and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and Architectural Digest. In 1987, she received the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation’s Ellis Haller Award for Outstanding Achievement in Journalism. In 2016, the French Minister of Culture named Thomas a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. She lives in Paris.

Reviews

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, but I really wanted to love it. First up--Dana Thomas is a great reporter, so I expected this to be great. Second--McQueen was probably my favorite designer while he was alive. Finally, Galliano is an incredibly creative and talented man, and a big ass--both of which make him fascinating.

The beginning--which is all about Galliano--was dull as dishwater. I don't know why--the stories, the happenings, the person are amazing. The prose just fell flat. Then along came Lee and it got better. Enter Anna Wintour and things really picked up. It simply was so much better after that--including the parts that were all about Galliano. I don't know why this is--maybe it will come to me after thinking for a few weeks/months. Still overall, it fell short.

It wasn't until very late in the game that I realized one reason I didn't like the beginning and didn't love the end--photos. There aren't enough photos. Yes, I know that photos in books are crazy expensive, but fashion, like cooking, can not go back to descriptions--you have to have photos for every outfit you talk about. Plus--the few photos the book does have are all grouped together in two sections, are in no understandable order. Like cookbooks--for a fashion book to be great, the photos need to be an integral part of the book. I began using my tablet to look up photos and news coverage of events, and that made it better. Maybe that is it entirely--I don't know. Still, if you love either designer or fashion in general, this is worth reading.

[judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no interest in high fashion but it's not possible to be alive without knowing a little about McQueen and Galliano. Fortunately, Thomas is well-versed enough to keep me interested and help me imagine what the clothing looked like (color pictures but way too few). Probably the best decision she made was to tell the stories of these two men together. The parallels in their lives and careers are fascinating. It's also possible that they are the last of a vanishing breed. It would seem that most of the legendary fashion and luxury goods houses have gradually been eaten up by large corporations. Bean counter alert! The quality and design that has attracted buyers who will pay rather extraordinary amounts is almost extinct. You can still have quality and design but after whatever cost-cutting compromises are mandated by the profit-hungry corporate bosses. I did surf and find wonderful clips from most of McQueen's collections. I didn't check for Galliano.

[Krodì80 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo scorso luglio, molti si chiedevano perché non comparisse da nessuna parte il video della collezione Haute Couture della Maison Margiela, disegnata da John Galliano. Io avevo visto la successione di scatti della passerella almeno una decina di volte (stima molto cauta), e compulsavo Internet voracemente alla ricerca di questa registrazione. Si è poi scoperto che la Fashion House si era presa più tempo del dovuto - in tempi come questi, dettati dalla voracità consumistica e impietosa di Instagram! - per editare, cesellare la materia incandescente di uno show unico, quello che nel gergo di settore viene definito un “fashion moment”. Il libro di Dana Thomas, pubblicato nel 2015, arriva però fino alla nomina del designer inglese - nato a Gibilterra - come direttore creativo del marchio, che fa capo al Gruppo OTB di Renzo Rosso: questo accadeva nell’ottobre del 2014, tre anni dopo il licenziamento di Galliano dalla celeberrima maison Christian Dior, a seguito dell’orribile episodio degli insulti antisemiti. La giornalista racconta in parallelo la vita di due delle stelle più fulgide del firmamento della moda internazionale, John Galliano appunto, e l’indimenticabile Alexander McQueen, designer cresciuto nell’East End di Londra ma con nel sangue la cifra stilistica più distintiva, sferzante, dilaniante, pura che mi sia capitato di “incontrare”, studiare, amare, e infine rimpiangere, perché McQueen, tormentato da fantasmi, dipendenze, stress lavorativi e continue depressioni, ha deciso di porre fine drammaticamente ai suoi giorni nel febbraio del 2010. Per apprezzare questo libro, con diverse lacune ma egregiamente scritto, a parer mio bisogna non solo essere curiosi, ma appassionati del pianeta fashion. Si scende spesso nel dettaglio, nelle descrizioni minuziose delle collezioni, si intersecano personaggi noti e secondari dal fashion system, in un cumulo crescente di informazioni, eventi e behind the scenes che potrebbe scoraggiare un lettore meno "addicted" alla moda. Io invece ho ripercorso con sommo godimento, intriso di nostalgia e ricordi a non finire, tante magnifiche passerelle degli anni ’90 e del primo decennio del 21esimo secolo. Con la lettura continuamente interrotta da frequenti, insaziabili incursioni su YouTube. Sottomesso all’impavido estro creativo di questi divini Gods and Kings.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half was quite enjoyable, reading about their background, their time at Central Saint Martins, early shows, breakthroughs, muses etc. But once they were respectively ensconced at Givency and Dior it all just became so so dull. Page after page after page describing clothes. You get weary trying to picture them and you can't look everything up on google. And the men themselves were just such unpleasant arrogant arses. And what they did barely useful if we're honest. Mostly the clothes seemed to be completely unwearable and the shows used to drive sales of perfumes and belts. So not only dull, but cynical and depressing.

There are some pictures at the end. It's hard to understand why there aren't more and why they are not scattered through the book alongside relevant text, at least in the kindle edition. It would have made it all a lot more enjoyable.

So I'd recommend only for hard core fashion fans. I'd only a passing interest really.

[Rodrigo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a fashion fan but I know who Alexander McQueen and John Galliano are, so basically I came to this book wanting to know about the lives of two creators, innovators and somehow geniouses that completely transformed their business and changed fashion history. Thomas, as the good journalist that she is, is incredibly well documented. The information she put in this book is really overwhelming but, somehow, I felt it fell short in taking us into these celebrities' lives. Yes, she starts on their births and ends on McQueen's death and Galliano's fall, and provides testimonies of relatives and close friends, but all this gets really lost among the endless and somehow boring descriptions of every garment, design and fabric on the designers' runways show. Maybe she intended to help us picture the beauty of their designs, but surely it would have been better and more effective to do it though actual pictures, not written (and boring) descriptions. Yes, pictures are expensive and there's the royalties issue... but such detailed descriptions didn’t help. The few pictures are located at the end of the book, in no particular order. Besides, I think she should have highlighted the innovations, the implications of each collection on fashion history, what they really meant for fashion business and creation trends, rather than just telling us what kind of fabric or jewelry they showed.

[Clar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finalmente he conseguido acabar el libro kilométrico que me ha llevado más de lo que pensaba. Es.... un viaje. No creo que sea un viaje feliz (?), pero es uno real. Si no conoces a los protagonistas es intrigante. Si, como yo, ya conoces las historias de ambos, conforme va avanzando el libro vas sintiendo cómo la tristeza te inunda para acabar (como una servidora), echando alguna que otra lágrima en un bus.

Os dejo con la frase final del libro: "(Alexander) Wang y sus colegas diseñadores aceptan que, ahora, la moda tiene que ver con el consumo, no con la creación. Que no hay lugar para The Birds o Sao Schlumberger. Que no hay poesía. Que no hay corazón. Que no hay angustia. Que es sólo un negocio".

Tanto si perteneces al mundo de la moda, o no, me parece un libro indispensable para entender cómo funciona y por qué lo hace así, en este momento. Y ya está.

[Dennis Holland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bitchy, brittle and bold. Callous, captivating and cold.
“That’s all.”

[Elizabeth Desole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I enjoyed this book, I felt it was essentially a tawdry tell-all masquerading as a more serious work. She does a fairly good job though of highlighting the massive changes that were taking place in high end fashion design during the "reigns" of Galliano and McQueen. I do wish that her preference for McQueen wasn't so obvious. I really feel it was an opinion (which I actually do share incidentally) presented as fact. I also found myself baffled by the inclusion of loving details of some collections and complete exclusion of others. FOr instance, if one wanted to make a point about the excesses of McQueen's shows, why would you leave out ones where, for instance, the model comes out walking a wolf? There were strange oversights like that which made the book seem less comprehensive than it purported to be.

[Antonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would admit that for the ultimate fashion fan this book would be a valuable read. Its filled up with enormous amount of details (private and professional) about Galiano and McQueen, however for somebody, like myself, who read it just out of sheer curiosity, those details became too overwhelming. The author provides a comprehensive description of the designers' collections but in fashion words are not as strong as images. The photo materials are scarce so you really need to posses strong and resilient imagination in order to visualize the fashion designs. Besides that, Ms Thomas has done a great job.

[Nickolette · Rating 5 out of 5]

It became like a little night routine - tucked in bed, me showing him a fashion show, one of the many I have encountered in the book throughout the day, either by McQueen or Galliano, but mostly McQueen as his collections were more poignant and concrete in their messages.

Aside from the childhood narratives in the beginning, the book is structured around the collections. The author, Dana Thomas, leads with the inspirations for the clothes, follows the creative process and describes the more notable pieces and the logistics before and at the day of the production. The small extracts from the reviews after the shows give us perspective how they were perceived at the time and where in their careers John and Lee were. We also get introduced to the inner circles of the designers and from there a plethora of characters opens up, as famous as Anna Wintour, Kate Moss, Lady D, as peculiar as Isabella Blow and Daphne Guinness, deep fashion people like Amanda Harlech and Andre Leon Talle, and obscure ones like Steven Robinson or Harumi Klossowska de Rola. A google search on any of these launches us down a rabbit hole of fascinating lives interconnected and branching out to endless cultural, business and political figures and events, and if you go back - to aristocratic family trees closer to fairy-tales than reality. If this is how you read the book, it is going to take ages.

http://slpssm.blogspot.com/

[Fleur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very important read if you’re into fashion (history)
The book places a lot of the modern fashion industry into perspective

[Vuk Vukovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

So absolutely incredible and inspiring. Reading this book first thing in the morning with my coffee almost everyday, really set the tone for the rest of my day and drove me to push my creativity and work ethic.

The first third is my favourite section as it goes over the beginning of their creative journeys and the struggles they went through in order to achieve their aspirations.

Immensely inspiring and motivating! I will be rereading

[Hannah Danfer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super detailed biography of two of England's best fashion designers. Could not put it down cover to cover

[Dylan Murray]

Det är så sjukt många som rekommenderade den här boken. Det är ett måste att läsa ifall du är det minsta intresserad i fashion och jag håller med efter att ha läst den! Insynen du fick bakom de här två genierna var så viktigt för att kunna förstå hur mode branschen fungerar. Det kreativa av det hela men också så mycket business. Skiftet under 80/90 tal där designers inte bara längre gjorde vackra kläder men hur de är nu celebrities och mode branschens högre tempo av att komma ut med nya kolektioner ständigt.

Lee Alexander McQueen var ett genie. (titta på ss 2001 voss och ss 2010 plato's atlantis några av mina favos) Så lärorikt att få läsa om hans kreativa process men också hans personliga liv. Dock jag inte var lika intresserad av John Galliano så lyckades ändå boken hyfsat bra med att kombinera dessa två designers i en bok. Det var otroligt lika på många sätt men ändå SÅ olika.

Där boken lider mest är på samma ställe som Just Kids gjorde. Det är så många namn och saker du måste hålla koll på. Även ifall du är hyfsat påläst om mode världen är det omöjligt att ha koll på allt det nämner och boken är inte så bra på att alltid lägga in bilder på allt man vill se och förklara allt ordentligt. Vilket betyder att man får sitta och googla många människor och många kollektioner.

[Pablo Parra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una interesante aproximación al trabajo de Galliano y McQueen. Me gusta la moda, pero tampoco sabía todos los detalles de sus vidas personales y profesionales.

Dana Thomas hace un gran trabajo de investigación, lleno de detalles interesantes y de conversaciones que ayudan a entender los paralelismos entre estas dos figuras. Creo que una de las cosas que más valen la pena mencionar es que la autora siempre menciona el contexto social en el que fueron apareciendo las creaciones de estas dos figuras, además de hablar de como el negocio de la moda se transformó completamente a principios de los 90.

Me gusta que es un libro que cuenta muchos detalles y que tampoco se pierde o se va por las ramas. Le pongo 4 estrellas porque hay ocasiones en las que el estilo se puede ciclar y pareciera siempre la misma estructura para narrar diferentes pasajes de la vida de estos dos diseñadores. También porque la parte final se siente un poco apresurada.

Pero vale mucho la pena, incluso para personas que no son tan amantes de la moda. Te ayuda a tener una perspectiva global de lo que es este negocio y como impacta en la vida de todas las personas, independientemente si son fashionistas o no.

[Niya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas' work makes solid use of her time as a fashion journalist and as a result the text is peppered with her personal insights from experiences at both McQueen and Galliano's shows, in addition to the time she spent interviewing them. The anecdotes, while few and fleeting, create a sense of understanding while carefully avoiding the tragic romanticism that often accompanies stories that chronicle a challenging rise to power and the eventual dramatic fall. While the pieces shares some things with other pieces written about McQueen - including Champagne Supernovas it sheds more light on his creative process, and less on the emotional/mental/physical struggle that accompanied his creative process. It's a worthwhile read for anyone who cares about the evolution of couture.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chiar o carte bine scrisa,nu o poti numi doar o reflectie asupra creatiilor lor si sa intre prea mult in detalii despre fiecare colectie,dar nici doar o biografie statica.
desi am ras noi de miss de pe spatele copertei a stiut sa gaseasca un balans dintre cele doua
Am o oarecare cunostiinta despre cei doi (Mcqueen in special)insa,tot am ramas captivata si am inteles mai bine unele lucruri,dar consider ca este acceptabila de urmarit si de cineva cu zero cunostiinte
Just another Mcqueen lover trough and trough🫡

[Kamma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learnt a lot about them as designers but also the fashion landscape at the time. But sad at the end

[Eve Hilinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

It happened that prior to this one I read a book named Champagne Supernovas, exploring the mad nineties era through three designers who allegedly formed it, at least played a leading role. One third of the book is dedicated to Lee Alexander McQueen. And in a way this book drove me to read more about him precisely. Galliano was in my list for a while too. So I finally got my hands on ‘Gods and Kings’ by Dana Thomas.

I was not disappointed. Overall it is decent, comprehensive journalistic work, and in my opinion author did a great job compiling information, interviews, articles, etc. There are few interesting interviews in the book made by Thomas herself, with both Galliano and McQueen, as well as plenty of’, family member’s, fellow colleges, partners, executives and more people who witnessed the story back then.

The book is not only about the transition of lower class art students into major superstars. Throughout their paths the author emphasises how the industry intel’s has changed in the span of ten years. The ending of the book, aka the conclusion by Thomas, was quite depressing and disappointed, which I am not necessarily agree with. As Thomas explain, fashion became such a grand business machine that there’s no more space for such purely emotional and deeply personal creators as McQueen for instance, and it is partly true especially under the so called ‘new ethics’ and cancel capture, however, one must acknowledge that there are many small designers with distinct and modern voices, one merely needs to know where to look for. Yes probably mane of them if survive as a business stay niche, but probably for good.


Some point of criticism I have over this book:
It was explicit, and yet I still wanted more information, more details. As when one gets older the time moves faster, same with the storytelling in Gods and Kings. The final hundred pages were merely short recollections of runway shows, barely writes about the preparation, defiantly less that in the beginning, as well as, barely of personal life and relationships. What I really missed in the book was Isabella Blow’s deep and complicated relationships with McQueen, as she had such a huge impact on his career and work in general, she and her tragedy deserves more attention, which lacks in this book, so when McQueen left her behind, without a certain context of their relationships and Isabella herself it is not clear why it had broke her. Thomas acknowledges her importance though. I lacked more details about behind the scenes for both McQueen and Galliano, precisely closer to the end of the book. Nevertheless, it made me cry to read about McQueen last month before death. With Galliano storytelling was even more rushed to the end.
Another minor complaint I have is that the author did not name every season of the collections, so especially in the begging, the timeline was a bit confusing and I had to look up the seasons myself from collection’s description or title if there was one.

[Arsh Siddiqui · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book, and it taught me a lot about a period in fashion history that I know almost nothing about. Due to that, I don't really have any overarching ideas I want to share about my experience here, but rather a few collected things of interest:

I'm sure everybody knows this by this point, but fashion is actively killing itself with the amounts of runway shows designers are meant to take on each year. I'm not sure if much has changed nowadays (my understanding is that it hasn't), but actively reading Galliano and McQueen continuisly picking up yet more and more collections to present every year feels sickening to me. Sickening, not because it is necessarily bad, but because of the insane amounts of work they each require. The quality (in whatever capacity you define quality to be) is going to drop somewhere and we can't all have nice collections all the time.

We complain about the repetitiveness of fashion nowadays in the world of online dressing, but I had never known that McQueen also criticized how designers kept pulling from the past for their current designs. I've seen more discussion online about the sameness in fashion nowadays, some of these discussions are good, some not so much, but McQueen showcasing the sameness in design shows how difficult it is to do something new. It makes me admire certain modern designers even more, that there are still people who are able to break away and do things not considered before.

It is odd seeing the Internet and things like Twitter appear at the end of this book. Although I recognize that McQueen and Galliano's lifetimes have intersected with mine (one is still alive, after all), it's still weird reading about this, when everything here feels decidedly not within my lifetime experiencing fashion. Some of these things feel like relics now, too, which feels weird given I uses to interact with them frequently.

[Lillie Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me MONTHS to get through bc Dana Thomas describes 50+ collections and hundreds of garments with such admiration that you’re forced to spend 20 mins once or twice a chapter watching the runways online. A picture is truly worth 1000 words!! @Netflix please pick this up

At the end of the day, this book provides a very sincere (and slightly biased) portrayal of two designers, with seemingly nothing in common, working two sides of the same coin. Fashion journalism at its best — opinionated, honest, and a little bitchy!!!

My two main takeaways are:
1. Alexander McQueen is the greatest to ever do it. Bar none <3
2. Don’t be ugly and annoying around Dana Thomas because she will call you a sweaty troll… multiple times… even if you’re dead….. lowk justice for Steven Robinson

[Rupa · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who loves high end fashion, I enjoyed reading about the lives of McQueen and Galliano. It was interesting learning about the differences and similarities of their backgrounds and disheartening to see how the fashion world envitably broke them. The timeline was fairly hard to follow at times as it wasn't always clear what year we were in.
Although this was a good read, it lacked imagery. It would be really helpful seeing the collections described. The two placement of a few images felt random and inconsistent with the chronological order of the book.

[Hiral Arora · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a brilliant book but I wish it came with photos. Vogue runway doesn’t have all the shows mentioned and I spent too much time looking up photos that matched the description which took away from the reading experience. When she describes all the brilliant decor and clothes and techniques, the descriptions are accurate once you open up the images. However, it is impossible to conjure up in your head the brilliance of Galliano and McQueen with mere words.
No shade on Dana Thomas, she is a brilliant writer. I hope a version of this book comes out with pictures, I’d buy that again.

[Pau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sense saber gaire res d'aquest món, m'ha interessat moltíssim, és una mica la mateixa història de sempre, no explica res nou, però ens explica a nosaltres, se m'ha fet repetitiu en alguns moments. He anat buscant els vestits que descrivia i les propostes escèniques que ho envoltaven i he flipat bastant.

[Aurora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Se nota el background de la autora como periodista de moda y el libro tiene mucha información y fuentes (tantas que a veces resulta difícil seguir las líneas temporales de ambos diseñadores). ¿Mi mayor crítica? Que es sorprendente que un libro de moda, en el que las colecciones son descritas con mucho detalle, no tenga más fotografías de las mismas.

[Yasmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping tandem memoir on Galliano and McQueen - highly recommend if you are interested in fashion, regardless of how you feel about these controversial figures. My one complaint is that I wish there were more photos! I am a child I need visual stimuli if you are going to reference a plethora of looks or shows

[s · Rating 3 out of 5]

stuffed with detail, and absolutely worth it on that level alone, but anytime thomas starts speaking on either galliano or mcqueen as people — mental health, addiction, professional pressure, faggotry, etc — she really makes tabloid gossip look nuanced!

[Jane Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

❤️Alexander McQueen your art and legacy will live on forever

Truly a once in a lifetime talent

[Matt Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this wonderfully researched and highly detailed account of the lives and careers of two of fashion’s most creative designers. I kind of wished I’d read a paper copy, as I imagine the pictures are spread throughout, and not all lumped together at the back like the eReader version. But it was great! Such creativity and passion and humor and tragedy; just the kind of non-fiction book that hooks me.

[Jess]

really well reported. made me want to look at every single collection mcqueen ever designed. also a very insightful portrait of the rapid evolution of luxury fashion commerce over the last 50 years