Did Alexander McQueen Die Well?

In The Memory of Alexander McQueen (16 March 1969 – 11 February 2010)

11 February 2010. It was the day which passed us by like any other day. This day, however, shocked the world of fashion. The renowned fashion designer Alexander McQueen was found dead in his apartment hanged. Many of us are horrified by the idea of death. When someone attempts suicide, we often sympathise the victim as if the world suffers a big loss. However, if the German philosopher Nietzsche were still alive, he would suggest the otherwise. He would remind all of us that there is something inherently beautiful about death. That a good death may re-define a person's life. McQueen's death is nevertheless to most of the people a tragedy, but did he die at the right time as Nietzsche suggested?

We may, after encounters with misfortunes, ponder upon whether there is any reason to cherish our trivial existence but at the same time we may be also sadly suspicious of the fact that no one would give our absence for more than a minute's thought. Motivated by this melancholy temperament, we often harbour a confused wish whether we can control our own death so everyone will remember us. But after an exhausting and fruitless contemplation, our Darwinian impulse always prevents us from doing so and our existence is so insignificant that the thought of dying well is often simply a matter of sheer luck.

But Nietzsche proposes that the difficult art of dying well can be mastered. In his celebrated work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he speaks of two admirable deaths, namely, the voluntary death and the consummating death. The idea of the voluntary death speaks for itself. It is the sort of death we wish which we may now call suicide. But according to Nietzsche, there is more to it. If we are to die well, we must die at the right place at the right time. What does that mean? Nietzsche explains it clearly,

'He who has a goal and an heir wants death at the time most favourable to his goal and his heir. And out of reverence for his goal and his heir he will hang up no more withered wreaths in the sanctuary of life.'

The consummating death is also involved with the timing and place, but the theme of timing is more exemplified in this idea:

'The man consummating his life dies his death triumphantly, surrounded by men filled with hope and making solemn vows. Thus one should learn to die: and there should be no festivals at which such a dying man does not consecrate the oaths of the living! To die thus is the best death.'

This passage seems to suggest that the person should acquire a degree of fame which everyone will affirm his influence by the time he dies. And his influence should either be on a global scale or strong enough to change our outlook on certain things in the world. Great artists and scientists should be well-fit for this category in terms of fame, but scarcely they died at the right time.

There is an interesting fact to notice what differs Nietzsche from the rest of us. When it comes to the idea of dying well, we often assume it depends on why the person dies. If a soldier died in a war because he fought hard for our country, we would like to think that his death was heroic and therefore dying well. However, Nietzsche invites us to the thought that how a person dies can be as important as the question of why.

Let us turn to McQueen. Does his death fulfil Nietzsche's criterion of dying well? Perhaps a little biography of his life is needed. McQueen's life was the kind of life which often triggers our jealousy. He was born in London and knew from a very early age that he wanted to be a fashion designer. After he left school around the age of sixteen, he acquired an apprenticeship at the traditional Saville Row tailors Anderson and Shephard. He also moved to the theatrical costumiers Angels and Bermans where he mastered six methods of pattern cutting. After finishing his master degree at St. Martins, he embarked upon the journey of becoming one of the most respected designers in the world.

If you watched any of his fashion shows before, you would be in awe of the beauty, creativity, and artistry he was capable of producing. If fashion shows meant anything to McQueen, they would be a means to displaying his own genius and nothing else. He had no patience with all the scrutiny regarding the practicality of fashion. He did not just transform clothes into a fancy name called fashion, but also urged us upon an irrefutable fact. That his fashion is a work of art which we should appreciate it on its own terms. Many times we witnessed in his fashions shows the designs which most of us are unable to wear on the streets. Because they are not designed to be worn. We are compelled to arrive at the conclusion that McQueen was not just a fashion designer, but also an artist. If there were any museum of fashion, McQueen's collections would have been taken up a huge section in there. His genius did not just restrict to clothes, but also the stage he presented his designs. His runway shows were also a means of expressing his creativity. A recreation of a shipwreck for his spring 2003 collection, spring 2005's human chess game and his fall 2006 show, "Widows of Culloden", McQueen confronted us with a holistic picture of what fashion should be. That in order to appreciate fashion, we must also appreciate the stage which gives way to manifest the elegance and divinity of the things that repeatedly have intimacy with our physical bodies. McQueen has revolutionised our concept of fashion. He has pushed us into revising the conventional thought that fashion is merely clothes imbued with style. He has showed us, with his knowledge of the six methods of pattern cutting, how clothes can express human beauty at its fullest which no fashion designer had ever done it before. He has re-defined fashion.

So far our analysis seems to suggest that McQueen's death is fit for Nietzsche's criterion. It leaves us in doubt whether his death fulfills Nietzsche's standard of 'time most favourable to his goal and his heir' since we do not know what he would have achieved if he were still alive. But his death definitely comes at the time which 'surrounded by men filled with hope and making solemn vows' because his impact on the fashion world is indisputably profound. McQueen was a 'man consummating his life who dies his death triumphantly'. His death is also fit for Nietzsche's definition of voluntary death because he wished it. It seems we should therefore be driven to the conclusion that McQueen did die well. Did he?

But I am afraid there is something missing in Nietzsche's idea of dying well because he fails to explore the question of how at its fullest. His puzzle is incomplete. I am therefore here to piece all the parts together so we can look at the whole picture. Nietzsche forgets to mention the method a person should choose to die if he is to die well. If voluntary death is to be included in the art of dying well, the art of suicide is then necessary to be mastered as well. The method a person should choose to die is no trivial matter. It involves with a person's morale and dignity. McQueen was found hanged in his apartment. But what does the act of hanging imply? The fashion master, though displayed skilful craftsmanship and genius in fashion, seemed to want to venture the chance to shrug off his artistic talents in the realm of suicide. Out of all methods of suicide, only Seppuku suggests that there is something noble and beautiful about the act of killing oneself. First, the victim must dress himself in white robes and have his favourite meal. And he should, with his sword on a desk, compose a death poem to honour the activity he is about to perform. Afterwards, he should have his assistant ready holding his sword. Then he will open his robes and pull out a short dagger to cut his stomach open. His assistant will then offer a fatal decisive blow at his head. Modern readers may be horrified by this ritual, but it offers dignity and gives the victim a noble reason to withdraw himself from this filthy, secular world. On the other hand, we often witness convicted criminals being persecuted by hanging. But should the fashion master be seen with these unforgiven scums on equal terms?

What can we say about McQueen's death? His death nevertheless lives up to Nietzsche's standard because he successfully earned respect from other fashion designers and influenced our way of looking at fashion before he passed away. From now on, we do not just look at clothes that merely shield us off from severe weather and give us style, but also re-define fashion as a work of art. Plato was wrong. McQueen has showed us that art does not exist to imitate nature. He, like Oscar Wilde, has urged us upon the fact that it is nature that actually imitates art. There is an insatiable desire buried deep in our heart to long for perfection, something that lies light years away from the reality, but through art, we can naively lavish our faith on our hopes. Lovers in reality often long for kisses that are witnessed in the Hollywood films. They wish to experience kisses as seen by Rodin. In like manner, we go on diet in hope of achieving the body ratio of those classical statues so we can carry McQueen's clothes.

Though McQueen failed to execute the art of dying well at its richest and fullest, his death is nonetheless considered a good death. He has cultivated our fashion sense and at the same time suggested that some deaths are not tragedy at all. Sometimes, in fact, they are worthy of celebration.

"Many die too late and some die too early. Still the doctrine sounds strange: 'Die at the right time.'... Die at the right time: thus Zarathustra teaches."- Friedrich Nietzsche

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P.S. I owe my inspiration of this article to one of the articles in the latest issue of Philosophy Now, "Dying At The Right Time" by Morgan Rempel.