Fashion designer Alexander McQueen has died. According to The New York Times, the British fashion designer known for his controversial collectionswas found dead Thursday morning at his apartment in London, according to Ed Filipowski, a partner in the public relations firm KCD, which represented the designer. The cause of death is thought to be suicide, but McQueen’s family has not yet made an official statement. McQueen was 40.
McQueen was an apprentice on Savile Row, but defied the conventions of English style by staging lavish runway productions that included clothes made with animal bones and models made to look as if they were patients in a mental ward or participants in a life-sized chess match. Still, he was a remarkable tailor, also making impeccably shaped and surprisingly commercial suits.
He had gone through a lot of personal trauma in the past few years. He was devastated when Isabella Blow, the stylist who discovered him and championed him, committed suicide in 2007. In addition, his mother passed away just last week.
According to Style.com, McQueen’s spring 2010 collection, Plato Atlantis, was touted by fashion icon Lady Gaga. It featured short, reptile-patterned, digitally printed dresses with an environmental message: McQueen was thought to be casting an apocalyptic forecast of the future ecological meltdown of the world.
