Today fashion lost one of it's geniuses of the runway. Alexander McQueen was found dead, an apparent suicide, at the age of 40 in his London flat.

I always looked forward to the marvelous, theatrical, spectacle that Alexander McQueen presented on the runway. It was always unique, fun and something only the mind of a genius could bring to reality. I'm sad that whatever it was became too much for him to bare but I know his fashion will live on and will inspire someone to be an original, just like he was.

Alexander McQueen was a boy from the East End of London, who got his apprentice training at the famous Saville Row, and before long he was making suits for Prince Charles and Mikhail Gorbachev.

In 1992 he opened his own studio in the East London, developing a reputation for his shocking and contorversial design, earning the nicknames "enfant terrible" and "the hooligan of British fashion".

During his successful career he not only had his own successful Alexander McQueen label but was also appointed head designer to Givenchy by Bernard Arnault the president of LVMH in 1996.

Here's an excerpt from Tim Blank's Style File Blog:

He was restless, but so pragmatic with it I assumed he had what it took to endure the extreme situations he placed himself in. He was also an arch romantic with a pessimistic streak. It produced some of the most beautiful, shocking images in the history of fashion, but it’s a state of mind that can lead to endless disappointments. The death of McQueen’s mother last week would have validated his pessimism. It would undoubtedly have taken away his most vital support. It’s awful to imagine him trying—and failing—to cope, and one can only hope that, if he was looking for peace, he found it

Below are some photos from the McQueen A /W 2010 Show at Milan's Men's Fashion. They were taken a few weeks ago by my close friend Thomas Trube, the head buyer of Kesner in N.Y.C. He was kind enough to let me borrow them so I can share them with you for this post. 

R.I.P