'My uncle will always be with me, I want to carry his spirit forward': Gary McQueen on taking up the family fashion legacy

The year is 1986. Eight-year-old Gary McQueen poses by a backstreet wall outside his nan’s house in Stratford, East London. Dressed in a New Romantic scarf and blazer, big enough to fall off his shoulders, the 18-year-old boy taking the photo on his Instamatic camera would go on not only to change fashion, but make their shared surname synonymous with it. The boy in question was Gary’s uncle, Alexander McQueen.

Meeting Gary James McQueen, now 37, you are struck by his eyes: dark blue with a cheeky twinkle when he laughs. “My uncle used to style me up. He tried to do something with my hair then eventually he’d give up and go, ‘It’s a birds nest.’”

The family resemblance is strong. Not just that he talks with the same dropped aitches that locate his birthplace east of the Bow Bells.

As he shows me the collection of men’s silk scarves he has created with Anderson and Sheppard, the Savile Row tailors where Lee, as McQueen was known, trained, it is clear that Gary’s aesthetics are a chip off the old block. Death and Re-birth are the main themes, with birds, bones, skulls and insects (locusts, mostly) in shades of grey, black and red.

McQueen was the cheeky working-class cockney sparrow taken under the wing of aristocratic fashion stylist Isabella Blow both as protégé and power tool.

Within the rarefied fashion world, McQueen stood out in every way. The son of a London black cab driver, his talent would transcend any limitations of the British class system. Legend has it that, while training at Anderson and Sheppard, he stitched an obscenity into the lining of a suit destined for the Prince of Wales.

McQueen brought danger to London fashion in the mid-Nineties with his theatrical shows that explored sexuality and other taboos. He made British fashion cool and gave it the super-league status it had long lacked.

Like his uncle, Gary is the son of a black cab driver. Indeed, it was because Gary’s mother, Janet, Lee’s elder sister, was out driving her cab, that uncle Lee (Blow was the one who suggested he took his second name, Alexander, for his label) would babysit and fashion photo shoots would be top of the agenda.

“We’d be at nan’s house in Biggerstaff Road, where Lee lived. When mum was out working, he’d let us watch horror films like Hellraiser.” Gary believes this sparked his own love of character creation: “The way my uncle approached art was through storytelling. He designed for characters, not people. That’s what I love to do.”

Despite the 10-year age gap, this understanding became a bond. When Gary was 12, his mother remarried and re-located the family to the German town of Luelsdorf, near Bonn. Gary remembers hearing about Lee through family talk.

“Nobody thought he was going to make it that big. He was quirky. I loved him for that. Mum openly admits to feeling embarrassed and protective. She worried that his shows were too ‘out there’.”

Lee and his big sister were extremely close. Kim Blake, the fashion PR who represented the designer, recalls how his shows were always delayed “to wait for Janet”, who would be battling her way through fashion-show crowds. Lee’s mother, Joyce, would be backstage helping, “but it was Janet he wanted front row”.

Gary had returned to London to study graphic design when a position came up at McQueen for a textile designer. He “jumped” at it, not least because his dreams of becoming a fine artist were not working out.

He had taken a job with the council, having become a father to two small children, Zara, who is now 16, and Mason, now 10. His youngest daughter, Violet, now four, was not yet born.

At 25, Gary remembers how Lee informally introduced him to the menswear team in the Clerkenwell studio. “It was a sweat box, basically – just chaos. For two months, no one really knew who I was. They probably thought I was one of Lee’s boyfriends,” he laughs.

Gary kept his head down. He recognised the “grey area” of being the boss’s nephew. Handily, his talent for printed textiles, his training in (then new) computer technology and having a stepfather as a printmaker helped. As did his fashionable looks.

At our meeting in an art studio in Dalston, Gary wears a tight black cashmere sweater showing off a toned torso, with trendy brown drainpipes “bought on the high street”, with expensive Alexander McQueen snaffle loafers. Reminiscing about life working at McQueen, Gary explains that “everything was urgent”. He added: “People would rush around like headless chickens when Lee was in the building.

“First you’d smell his cigarette smoke, then hear his psychotic laughter. Everyone liked to please him. He would ask people to do the impossible.

“For Lee, nothing was impossible. Everything could be done if you tried hard enough. And for him, you always did. He had such high expectations. I’d get the sharp side of his tongue, then the next day he’d pat me on the back.”

At the time of McQueen’s death in 2010, Gary had been working for his uncle for five years. “We worked weekends, and late nights closer to the show – not ideal when you’re a dad. Lee had a bad lifestyle. I was not close to his friends. He kept his life private. After work, I’d go home to my family and Jane [his partner, who was then a banker].”

Gary thinks his uncle started to get “more down” after Blow’s suicide in 2007. He recalls his last conversation the day before his uncle took his own life: “We had discussed a memorial statue for my nan [Lee’s mother, who had died a week earlier]. He liked the design of an angel, but wanted the hands to face upwards. I’d been concerned [about him], but that day he seemed optimistic. He looked bad, but was in good spirits. I don’t know what people could have done – he’d made his decision.”

Gary continued to work for the Alexander McQueen label after Sarah Burton (another of Lee’s protégés) took over as creative director. In 2011, she famously created the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress, propelling the McQueen name to even greater global recognition.

“Sarah is such a nice person, so genuine,” said Gary. “She genuinely wanted the best for Lee and really made me feel comfortable.”

But, thanks to the confidence his late uncle had instilled in him, Gary left the label in 2012 to set up on his own. “My uncle will always be with me, but I want to be my own person and, at the same time, carrying his spirit forward. Scarves are a way of paying tribute to my uncle, and a starting point for me.”    

Gary has also created cards for Chasing the Stigma, a men’s mental health charity. “A lot of things happened in Lee’s life which made him the person he was, made him the great person he was but also caused a lot of his demons.”

He is reluctant to be called a ‘fashion designer’ box preferring ‘multi-tasking artist’. You may find him working on a 3d sculpture or 2d print. Or picking blood from the bones of a rotting boar’s jaw to come up with an accessory for a photo shoot. He is particularly proud of a digitally engineered print for a women’s scarf inspired by moonlight on moving bodies (these are available from his website). “Its got that feeling Lee would loved.” 

Gary McQueen's scarves are available to buy at GaryJamesMcQueen.com