I was literally 3 years old when I started drawing. I did it all my life, through primary school, secondary school, all my life. I always, always wanted to be a designer. I read books on fashion from the age of twelve. I followed designer's careers. I knew Giorgio Armani was a window-dresser, Emanuel Ungaro was a tailor.
Interpretation
The quote reflects Alexander McQueen's lifelong passion for design and fashion, emphasizing dedication and early inspiration.
In this quote, Alexander McQueen shares his deep-rooted passion for fashion design, which he cultivated from a very young age. He highlights the importance of consistent engagement with his interest, from childhood drawing to studying the careers of established designers. This demonstrates how early exposure and sustained effort can influence and shape one's career path, as well as the significance of following one’s dreams tirelessly. McQueen's journey illustrates that passion, knowledge, and perseverance are fundamental components of achievement in any field.
In practice
In an interview about your career path, you could use this quote to illustrate the importance of pursuing your passion from a young age.
My friend George and I were walking on the beach in Norfolk, and there were thousands of [razor-clam] shells. They were so beautiful, I thought I had to do something with them. So, we decided to make [a dress] out of them. . . . The shells had outlived their usefulness on the beach, so we put them to another use on a dress. Then Erin [O’Conner] came out and trashed the dress, so their usefulness was over once again. Kind of like fashion, really.
I want to be honest about the world that we live in, and sometimes my political persuasions come through in my work. Fashion can be really racist, looking at the clothes of other cultures as costumes. . . . That’s mundane and it’s old hat. Let’s break down some barriers.
I was this young boy and I saw this man with his hands round my sister's neck, I was just standing there with her two children beside me... Everything I've done since then was for the purpose of making women look stronger, not naïve. And so, when everyone started saying I was a misogynist, that really freaked me out. They didn't know me. They didn't know what I had seen in my life. That was the first part of fashion that I hated - people labeling me without knowing me.
I came to terms with not fitting in a long time ago. I never really fitted in. I don't want to fit in. And now people are buying into that.
Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.
I'm interested in designing for posterity.
Painting is but another word for feeling.
I can't say what people use the experience of listening to songs for, but I would never tell somebody what it is supposed to mean. That defeats the purpose of making it. Hopefully, whoever connects with it connects with it in their own way, and it can mean whatever it is supposed to mean to them.
The commitment to working at poetry is important because a poet is a maker, and a poem is a made thing. We have to honor our feelings by working to transform them into something meaningful and lasting.
Relating a person to the whole world: that is the meaning of cinema.
Music and language are a vital element. We, as actors and directors, offer it to people who want to experience it. Sometimes the actual meaning is less important than the words themselves.
To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies- the man who searches painfully for the perfect word, and puts the way of saying a thing above the thing said - there is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.
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