By CATHY HORYN
Published: September 20, 2010
About 1,000 people, some in homage plumes, nearly all in raven black, gathered here today in St. Paul’s Cathedral to celebrate the life of Alexander McQueen, a man whose genius remained resiliently set against the minor and the conventional.
Alluding to his artistic nature, one that was often deeply troubled but which reliably found joy in beautiful clothes and presenting them in extraordinary settings, Suzy Menkes, the fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune, one of four speakers, said of St. Paul’s: “It would have been his ultimate venue.”
The memorial service for Mr. McQueen, who committed suicide on Feb. 11, started promptly at 11 a.m. under the cathedral’s soaring dome as two choirs led the clerical procession past Mr. McQueen’s father, Ronald, and family members on one side, and his friends and professional colleagues seated in a facing semicircle. They included the designers Stella McCartney and Hussein Chalayan, Sarah Jessica Parker, the models Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, and Daphne Guinness, who was somberly outfitted in McQueen tailoring with a black feather-shaped hat.
In his opening address, the Rev. Canon Giles Fraser acknowledged the two distinct spheres of influence on the designer. “When he needed support and solace, he found it in his family,” the Rev. Fraser said. “Which is why, despite the dazzle of his world, he never forgot his East End roots and how much he owed to his loved ones.”
The Thanksgiving service was elegant, strict and full of the English pomp and circumstance to which Mr. McQueen was unquestionably not immune. A nephew, Mark McQueen, read from John 14. The London Community Gospel Choir performed “Amazing Grace” as a collection was taken to benefit, among other charities, the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home; several speakers referred to Mr. McQueen’s fondness for animals, in particular his three dogs. Prayers were read by another nephew, Gary Hulyer, as well as a friend of Mr. McQueen’s, the milliner Philip Treacy, and Jonathan Akeroyd, the chief executive of the McQueen company.
The music included the most English of hymns, “Jerusalem.” Björk, dressed in a feathery gray and brown skirt and a parchment set of wings that framed her small, gold-capped head — presumably an allusion to the designer’s love of birds and falconry — movingly sang “Gloomy Sunday,” based on the Billie Holiday version.
Mr. McQueen, as Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, observed in her address, was a man of profound contradictions. “There was no comfort zone with Alexander McQueen,” Ms. Wintour began, noting that people could be delighted, repulsed and amazed by his fashion. Equally, he was capable of belligerent and impulsive behavior; he was famous for not showing up for appointments and grand events alike.
She recalled how he failed to appear for his first photo shoot for American Vogue, as a rising star in the early 1990s, and that she learned later that he didn’t want British welfare authorities to see him pictured in a fashion magazine, as he was then living “on the dole.”
There were to be other vanishing acts in Mr. McQueen’s career. Yet, noted Ms. Wintour — who was dressed in an embroidered McQueen coat over a bronze metallic dress — when he came bounding into the Costume Institute gala a few years ago, turned out in tartan and escorting Ms. Parker, all was forgiven.
“We always forgave Alexander,” she said.
There were only indirect references to Mr. McQueen’s private troubles, though the speakers acknowledged that creativity was his main emotional outlet, and surprisingly little mention was made of his great muse, the late Isabella Blow. Still, as guests entered the cathedral, among them the writer Plum Sykes in a McQueen black dress and peaked hat, a British editor murmured out loud, “I wish Izzy could have been here.”
The two other speakers were Annabelle Neilson and the jeweler Shaun Leane, both close friends of Mr. McQueen’s.
At the close of the service, around noon, as rays of sunshine intermittently broke through from the dome onto the checkered stone floor, a lone bagpiper walked slowly toward the congregation, playing music from “Braveheart.” He was followed by the choirs and the clergy down the center aisle, and was joined on the front steps of St. Paul’s by 20 pipers. As the guests filed out, they stood and listened on the sides, with a crowd of people watching from the street below.
