Sadly, Alexander McQueen died two days ago, apparently took his own life.  I can see some parallels between him and Van Gogh.  Both brilliant to the point of insanity.

He was young, about 40 years. A rebel and a genius at odds with an industry that is more interested in selling than creating. You can see a retrospective of Alexander McQueen’s work from 2001 to his last collection at the New York Magazine site.

His New York store on 14th Street is closed until next week and an impromptu memorial is growing on the icy sidewalks.

His death leaves a void of creativity in the fashion world. He will be greatly missed.  As Blondie once sang “Die Young, Stay Pretty”.

He was very pleased with his latest collections, shown in London this past October (2009) which sadly became his last. Titled “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea” and inspired by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, it was streamed live on the web.

You can watch it here:

I always loved her style and her clothes, even though they were out of my reach. Underlying her collections through the years is one theme, pure self expression.  Regardless of the inspiration or whatever time period this inspiration came from, it was always about how you felt. You could be a pirate today and a 50s rocker tomorrow. To me that is art to wear, regardless of what form it may take.

In 1981 I had the privilege of meeting Gene Krell, then manager of  World’s End, during a visit to Rio de Janeiro.  My son was an infant and my family had invited me to stay with them for a while.

Gene is a really sweet guy and we both stuck out in the crowd in Rio back then. He was there to research and to introduce the collection to the Media. I had the honor of having my jewelry used for the “Pirates” collection photo shoot. My then current jewelry collection was inspired by the 1800’s and Modernism. An odd mix, but quite stunning and just right for the time. After all this was the 80s. Living in the East Village I was very aware of what was happening then, it was part of my everyday life. Unfortunately, my copies of the magazines were lost in time in my many travels. I still search for them and hope to find them at some point. I returned to New York and he returned to London.  We stayed in touch for a while but then lost track of each other.

In the meantime, he has written Dame Vivienne Westwood’s biography for the book series “Fashion Memoir”, a must read as her history is fascinating.

This past Friday during an interview with British Jonathan Ross at his TV Show, she discussed shopping, style, consumerism and the survival of our species. I am glad to know we still have much in common as people in spite of our geographic and life style differences.

Looking beautiful as always, dressed in 7 meters of silk (about 7 yards)  she talks about making do with what we have, shopping our own closets and preserving the environment.  I believe she did not mention vintage as after all, she still needs to sell her own collections. It was a very interesting interview and both parts are embedded below. Enjoy!

Part 1