It was with shock and sadness that yesterday fashion and news websites around the world broke the news of Alexander McQueen’s death. As a McQueen fan since becoming interested in the glossy magazines in my teens, the poignant fact that we will no longer have his extraordinary talent or his rebellious, boundary-pushing imagination on our catwalks is truly tragic. But whilst this morning the news of his death has turned to speculation and finger-pointing in many corners of the industry, it seems far more fitting to remember some of McQueen’s greatest moments, and although I would rather not be digging through archives to put together this retrospective, some of the images and reports that I unearthed brought back fantastic fashion memories of his showmanship and tailoring talent.

At the start
McQueen’s tailoring skills are unsurprising when you combine oodles of natural talent with a stint on Savile Row. He then went through Central St Martins, launching his first collection in 1992. The great fashion doyenne Isabella Blow sat on the stairs during his 1994 show and was transfixed by the quality of his work, and as fashion legend has it, bought the entire collection, which was then delivered to her in bin-bags. In 1995 he shot onto the media stage with his infamous ‘bumster’ trousers, so low that they flashed a hint of bum cleavage. Whereas these days young women are ridiculed for wearing ill-fitting, thong-scraping jeans, in the mid-nineties McQueen was merely making a statement against the consensus aesthetic that the rest of the fashion industry had subscribed to, earning him the slightly overused moniker ‘enfant terrible’ of fashion week.

Family Trees and Salem Witches
One of the things that made McQueen’s collections so heartfelt was the personal touches he included, either from his own life or history. For his autumn 2007 show the theme was based around Salem witches, after his mother traced the family tree back to a victim of the Salem witch trials in 1692. Many commented that the collection was conceptually very angry and dark, and some editors weren’t fans, but all agreed that the garments could have jumped from a tragic medieval painting – testament to McQueen’s skills with fabric, cut and colour.

Tribute to Isabella Blow
After the death in 2007 of his mentor and supporter Isabella Blow, McQueen dedicated his spring 2008 show to her, including a stunning collection of millinery creations alongside his outfits – all of which had the vintage wasp-waisted, immaculate style-with-a-twist of Blow. The collection was a success, not just because of the theme, but because McQueen had gone back to his Savile Row tailoring techniques and had whipped garments into flawless shapes and drapes. Sarah Mower of style.com wrote in her report that the designer had ‘honoured his mentor by striving to bring out the best in himself’.

Always a Showman
McQueen became as famous for his showmanship and ability to delight audiences as for his design skills, with notable catwalks including a post-modernist human chess game using the models in 2005, and a medieval shipwreck scene in 2003. Veteran show-goers will never forget the show from 1998 when model of the moment Shalom Harlow stood on a rotating platform, as robot machines spray painted the white ball-gown she wore, to the applause of the audience. And to finish the autumn 2006 show, everybody became transfixed on a glass pyramid as a hologram of a billowing white dress and ethereal model came alive – the hologram was of Kate Moss, and once again the audience broke out in applause as the apparition faded away.

Scottish Tartan and Anglomania
In the early nineties, McQueen’s ‘Highland Rape’ show caused a stir amongst fashion editors and the watching media, and he revisited this aesthetic in his autumn 2006 show, centred this time around a fantasy Scottish ‘princess’ look, full of draped fabrics, tartans and exquisite head-pieces, rather than the darker, moodier pieces of his early career. The tartan look was a huge success, with Sarah Jessica Parker wearing a complete McQueen look for the Anglomania Costume Institute Gala in New York in 2006.

‘McQueenadillos’ and Lady Gaga
The spring 2010 collection, shown last September, was another triumph of combined showmanship and technological creativity. The theme was Plato’s Atlantis, and the dresses were a combined effort of digitally created prints, bright clashes of colour and models braving the length of the runway in what were affectionately referred to as McQueenadillos: huge ten inch curved platform shoes, many of which had the shape and texture of an armadillo. The show had an overall modernist, digital theme, with SHOWstudio streaming the catwalk live, and huge plasma screens, held in place by giant robots, showing a film of Raquel Zimmerman lying on the sand as snaked writhed across her.

It was at this time that Lady Gaga had found McQueen, reminding everybody of why he had thrived on his relationship with Isabella Blow, a lady equally famous for her fashion daring and stylistic touches (including her hats and head-dresses, something that Lady Gaga emulates). It was the avant-garde singer that first got her hands on a pair of the McQueenadillos to wear in her ‘Bad Romance’ video, a shade before high-fashion priestess Daphne Guinness strode out in hers.

The Silk Skull Scarf
One of the most simple yet iconic McQueen pieces (and one that has reportedly been selling out in stores following the news of his death) is the silk skull-print scarf. Skull imagery was often used in his early shows; with the gothic touch arguably one of his lasting legacies. Variations on the skull print have been seen on everybody from Kate Moss to Johnny Depp, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more A-list fashionistas stepping out in theirs as a mark of respect and appreciation of McQueen’s brand and talent.