A graduate of Central Saint Martins, McQueen sharpened his tailoring skills at Anderson & Shepherd and Gieves & Hawkes, trained as a theatre costumer at Barmans & Nathans, and worked for Koji Tatsuno and Romeo Gigli before launching his own iconoclastic label in 1992. His assertively tailored silhouettes and high-impact runway presentations attracted at least as much attention as his famous tantrums. In 1996, McQueen was hired to design for Givenchy, but the collaboration came to a halt when rival luxury conglomerate Gucci bought majority stakes in McQueen's own line in December 2000. In 2004, he launched his ready-to-wear line, McQ. In 2010, the fashion world was stunned when McQueen took his own life at the age of 40.

"I don't come from money, so I don't respect that kind of attitude.... There is no style in gloating about money."