The Real McQueen

Telegraph: “I’m always sceptical when the word ‘genius’ is bandied about by the fashionista — more or less everything is ‘genius’ in their world,as in,‘Love that belt,darling. It’s genius.’” He argues McQueen was no genius in the way Oscar Wilde or Jimi Hendrix were. And that “genius” or “taste” in fashion is decided upon by a few editors.

I hate to admit that Young isn’t entirely far out. Much of what McQueen was,and became,was attributed to his personality. His battle with his weight,struggle to cope with his homosexuality and his modest roots (his father was a taxi driver) were the lard-to-luxe stories we all love. To say his creativity was boundless should be fuelled by the fact that he was already a success in feeding into a world that worshipped the outlandish. Even the idiotic.

That and the fact that he was hotly promoted by two very significant women friends. The English eccentric Isabella Blow bought out his entire graduation collection,parked him in her house and held several trunk shows for him from her home. And Sarah Jessica Parker,hot from the success of Sex and the City,wore a McQueen gown in tartan to pick up an Emmy,turning the designer,nothing more until then than “the hooligan of British fashion”,to a moneymaking designer in the US.

There are several designers in India who have less talent and more personality to keep their careers on the right track. My favourite example is Sabyasachi,often misunderstood to be the Greatest Indian Designer Alive. While he’s earned his salami making rich Marwari women dress as their domestics do,his genius is ersatz to Anamika Khanna’s—a Kolkata colleague who got left behind due to poor marketing skills and dull fashion shows.

Manish Arora stole the crown of l’enfant terrible from Rohit Bal when he presented a collection celebrating same-sex love (along with a soundtrack that had Kurt Cobain mouthing “Ladies and Gentlemen,I have done drugs and I have loved it”.) We all applauded and fell in love with the skinny man who had “Ladies Tailor” tattooed on an arm.

There’s more talent in Savio Jon and Arjun Saluja than I’ve seen in too many big names,but they remain not too far from where they began.

In fashion,genius is often misunderstood as outré-it’s just the nature of the beast. And had McQueen been a little less of a prima donna and a little more straitlaced,he would have probably died a little less rich.

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