A Rare Glimpse Into Alexander McQueen’s Working Process

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Alexander McQueen led a notoriously private life, allowing very few into both his personal and professional spheres. Yet in 2007, McQueen commissioned photographer Nick Waplington to create a photo book of his design process, cataloguing all aspects of his Fall/Winter 2009 show, from conception to creation. "Do whatever you want," McQueen told Waplington, "this will be your book and I will be the subject." Over six months and 800 photographs later, Waplington had captured McQueen's working progress in his London studio and Paris atelier, highlighting his multi-faceted "The Horn of Plenty" collection, as McQueen named it, which encompassed concepts and inspiration from his previous 15 seasons. Less than a year later, McQueen would tragically take his own life, leaving behind a still-admired legacy, and this book of unpublished, rare photographs. Now, three and a half years after his death, Waplington's intimate images are being published, providing those who did not personally know McQueen with a look into his private life. "In the end, though, it is important to remember that however challenging the subject matter, this collection was created with and among old friends," Grazia's Fashion Director Susannah Frankel writes in the foreward. "For all the street, exasperations, and even pain that went into its making there was lightness and laughter too. Alexander McQueen was fragile, more fragile, perhaps, than anyone around him realized, but he was happiest when working on a show." Waplington's haunting imagery of "The Horn of Plenty," from start to finish, show above all, what McQueen loved most.

Nick Waplington