Melanie Rickey remembers Alexander Mcqueen’s last show

Fashion writer Melanie Rickey remembers Alexander Mcqueen’s final show The designer died 10 years ago this week

In October 2009 I attended Alexander Mcqueen’s Plato’s Atlantis show in Paris on behalf of Grazia. It was, as pretty much always for a Mcqueen show – and I’d been to every single one of them since 1995 – an epic, unsettling experience showcasing his romantic, rebellious soothsaying streak to full effect. Looking back, my hastily scribbled notes, written in thrall to what was unfolding before me, are embarrassingly basic: ‘Sliced, spliced, hybrid micromini-dresses. Hyper-real digital animal prints. Snake. Armadillo shoes. Mutant make-up.’ But his shows did that to you. No other show has come close.

According to Mcqueen himself, the collection ‘predicted a future in which the ice caps would melt, the waters would rise and life on Earth would have to evolve in order to live beneath the sea once more, or perish’. It was typical of him. The 40-year-old London-born designer was full of contrasts: cheeky chappy, romantic soul, nature lover, club kid, future gazer and history obsessive. Each show brought out a different side to his personality.

And this presentation was the first ever to be live-streamed – Mcqueen’s pioneering collaboration with the photographer Nick Knight. This was 2009, remember. Add Lady Gaga premiering her new track Bad Romance into the mix, and is it any wonder the site crashed?

When he took his bow at the end, little did any of us know that it would be for the last time.

When Mcqueen died by suicide a few months later, on 11 February 2010, the shock and grief were immense. Why, when he had so much yet to live for? A light went out in the world.

His right-hand woman, Sarah Burton, has since continued what Mcqueen started, further building a globally renowned British luxury-fashion house that dresses the world’s A-list. In the weeks after his death, Burton worked tirelessly to finish his final collection: 16 looks cut by Mcqueen himself, and 80 per cent complete when he died. Our last glimpse of his genius took place in a gilded Parisian salon accompanied by soaring opera. Every garment, whether full-length cape, monastic gown or fancy cocktail dress, was exquisitely, ethereally beautiful. Weighted with religious references of heaven and hell, the models were his fallen angels adorned in ecclesiastical couture. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when, at the end of the presentation, an aide whispered, ‘There is no more.’ Inferno: Alexander Mcqueen, by Kent Baker and Melanie Rickey (Laurence King , £24.95)