Raise a Glass to the Armadillo Shoe

Filed in archive News on February 14, 2010

Alexander McQueen's death this week rocked the fashion world. It's a terrible loss. Funny, me saying this, when I'm a J. Crew basics kind of dresser. I would never be caught dead in a pair of armadillo shoes, and I'm far too practical to buy anything resembling the outlandish fashions McQueen designed.

But what I'll miss about McQueen is that he treated fashion as akin to performance art and used his own fame as a platform to comment on the fashion world as a whole.

Though I love clothes, I've always found the high fashion world completely ridiculous. What I like least is the seriousness with which fashion is always treated. Ridiculously high heeled shoes (Herve Leger was the cause of more than one spill on the catwalk last year) and equally outlandish clothes are treated with grim seriousness.

Still, the concepts that start in the pages of Vogue are the same ones I'm reaching for when shopping at Nordstroms, even if they've been whittled down to a bare whisper of the original. So I recognize the need for the designers, if I don't always appreciate their approach.

McQueen brought something fresh to the fashion world. It's no wonder Lady Gaga sported his clothes in her fantastic video Bad Romance. They both have great talent and a sense of humor. So let's raise a glass to Alexander McQueen. May his memory live on.

Photo above is from MyFashionLife.com.