Dear McQueen, my First

Today you are "the talk of the studio"; "The News" we should all have heard; the shadow cast over an imminent fashion week. And above all, a shock I could never have pre-conceived before I stepped out of my Limehouse flat this morning.

Forgive my sycophancy, Lee, if you will but I speak on the part of millions when I say you were a template of success, voyeurism and style from a young age. I think it was your Fall 2006 that really grabbed my imagination, or rather flung it from floor to ceiling with such gravitas that I have rarely ever backtracked on my opinions on what constitutes good style.

Since I was old enough to read Vogue and comprehend that Kate Moss meant more than just cheekbones and Chanel was more than just a savvy brand, you have been centrifrugal to my understanding of fashion as more than just a pathetic elite. It was a means of escapism.

In many ways you gave flight to my aggressive counter arguments to all those heinous unfans who dubbed The F Word as 'unnecessary'. Fashion is one of those tertiary cultural needs, that as Jean Luc Godard once famously put, make you reach for your chequebook. I am sure those same people would blanche at the idea that bands, like Animal Collective are unecessary; or Nabokov's Lolita; or a Bizet opera. These things are all eye-opening. And what is life without a little extravagance, a hint of whimsy or a touch of surrealism (and more importantly an LBD... I jest. Ahem)?

Your reign as la roi de la mode was not without controversy; whispers from design students would have your house collapse in shame. But I shan't taint you. For now you are immortalised- a stubbly, Cockney Marylin Monroe of my generation.

RIP.

Photo courtesy of style.com by Marco Madeira