Leila’s Reviews > Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano > Status Update

“There is no place for ‘The Birds’ or the São Schlumberger show. That there is no poetry. No heart. No angst. It’s just business” bro not to be annoying but you can’t give me a more uplifting ending? Or something more personal about either of them? Or something? Just feels like she really did not stick the landing here.

“In the 30 years since Galliano presented his breakthrough degree collection and started his tiny company, with two primarily handmade collections a year, fashion has grown into a monolith that has no time or patience for imaginative young designers or small businesses.” Well damn!

Just an absolutely devastating loss. A man who had such talent, such compassion. Crying whilst reading, just a terrible horrible thing

“McQueen draped and cut more than half the dresses [for Plato’s Altantis show] himself, and hardly made a mistake—a technical feat that few in fashion could achieve. ‘He came alive when he was fitting clothes,’ [Burton] later said. ‘He made you feel like you might as well pack your bags and go home.’”

“McQueen’s drug taking had reached epic proportions, he was suffering from drug-induced hallucination, telling people that shoot out from underneath his bed, and he was still raving about a man sexually abusing his as he slept. Ungless was stunned…‘Can’t somebody do an intervention?’…No one in London did anything.”

VOSS collection: “engraved red Venetian glass corset, worn with a black pencil skirt. And for the closing look, a sleeveless gown with a bodice made of blood red stained glass microscope slides and a skirt of red and black ostrich plumes”

Having a real hard time believing this narrative they want to push that Galliano was an ass but not an antisemite. FW 2000-2001 couture “One outfit, of a military officer, was originally accessorized with a Nazi SS cap; when Toledanl saw it during the rehearsal, he asked Galliano to remove it from the show. Galliano complied.”

Galliano making a collection with models cosplaying as homeless people… and straitjacket wearing asylum patients… “How did Galliano ever believe it would be socially or morally okay to make $100,000 dresses inspired by the homeless and mentally ill?”

I had no clue about the scale of this Domenico de Sole and Tom Ford vs LVMH/Arnault drama! Incredible! And that they avoided LVMH takeover (in part) via an employee stock ownership plan!

Initial discussion of McQueen’s infatuation of the 1987 Galliano shellfish dress for Blanche DuBois collection