'When times are hard, fantasy and escapism are crucial' Alexander McQueen 

Having grown up in London’s East End, Alexander McQueen left school at 15 to become a tailor’s apprentice on Mayfair’s Savile Row. At 22, he joined the prestigious MA course at Central Saint Martins and, after presenting his 1992 graduate collection (bought on the spot by influential fashion stylist Isabella Blow), went on to change the course of fashion.

McQueen was defiant in his opinions on creativity (‘Give me time and I’ll give you a revolution’), women (‘I design clothes because I don’t want women to look all innocent and naïve … I want people to be afraid of the women I dress’) and craft (‘You’ve got to know the rules to break them. That’s what I’m here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition’). He drew much of his inspiration from the natural world (‘I have always loved the mechanics of nature and to a greater or lesser extent my work is always informed by that’) and consistently challenged perceptions of beauty (‘People find my things sometimes aggressive. But I don’t see it as aggressive. I see it as romantic, dealing with a dark side of personality’).