A review by hbreader
Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin by Andrew Wilson

4.0

Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin is a very ambitious book. Author Andrew Wilson does a great job of detailing the reasons for the designer's untimely demise, which is what I think he set out to accomplish. My issue is with the focus of the book. I was hoping to gain more insight about the development and blossoming of McQueen’s creative genius. Many great artists and brilliant people of all kinds are difficult and develop mental health and addiction issues. I am less interested in the ways that McQueen acted out and more fascinated by the humor that all of his friends said he had and of course his artistic genius. I did learn a lot about the collections and I loved those passages of this book the most. Andrew Wilson describes the fashion shows and the events surrounding them in great vivid detail. The narration performance by Piers Hampton contributes strongly to this work.

I would recommend this book to a specific subset of Alexander McQueen fans. I would recommend this only to those fans who are not disturbed by graphic descriptions of sex and drug use. They say it is best not to meet one’s heroes. My admiration of the fashions remain after reading this, but it was hard to maintain my admiration of the designer himself. I hope that someone who was close to him will come forward and write the other parts about him that were missed here.