Alexander McQueen’s Bio-play Has Neither Style Nor Substance

A gloriously grotesque aluminum corset in the shape of an alien spine ; a pair of pearlescent antlers draped in embroidered lace; stiletto heels, bulbous, scaly, and spiky, like armadillos balancing on their heads and tails; wraithlike models with black contact lenses or silver prosthetic jaws, or covered in feathers, chain mail, spray paint, or the shells of razor clams … These might be some of the images that spring to mind when you think of the fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen, known to the world by his second two names and lost to it when he took his own life in 2010 at the age of 40. They are also among the near-endless array of gestures from his oeuvre that spur more excitement, more agitation, more pure feeling in their contemplation alone than does House of McQueen ,