McQueen label will go on says owner

The Alexander McQueen label is part of the Gucci group, owned by PPR, and has 11 boutiques from New York to London.

PARIS (AFP) – Alexander McQueen's label will live on despite the suicide last week of the flamboyant British designer, French luxury group PPR said Thursday.

"This would be the best tribute that we could offer to him," said Francois-Henri Pinault, president of the group, at a meeting in Paris to present company results.

The 40-year-old McQueen, one of Britain's most lauded designers, hanged himself in his London apartment on February 11 on the eve of his mother's funeral and after leaving a note.

He was said to have been distraught over his mother's death and had posted comments on the Twitter web service a few days before his death about his "awful week."

Pinault said that the decision to maintain the label was taken quickly after McQueen's death and voiced confidence that the fashion house continues to hold "very important potential."

The Alexander McQueen label is part of the Gucci group, owned by PPR, and has 11 boutiques from New York to London. It employs 180 people worldwide.

Gucci Group chief executive Robert Polet said McQueen had acquired solid brand recognition. McQueen's team of creators will finish work on his latest collection which will be presented in Paris on March 9, he said.

Pinault opened the Paris meeting with an emotional tribute to McQueen, saying he had lost a "friend" and describing him as "highly sensitive" and "a unique individual whom we are missing terribly."

Often described as a design maverick, McQueen won four British designer of the year awards.

The son of a taxi driver born in London's working-class East End, McQueen became one of Britain's most acclaimed names in fashion, working as chief designer for Givenchy in 1996 before creating his own label.

Gucci bought a majority stake in his label in 2001 but McQueen retained creative control.

The label went into profit in 2007, according to Gucci, but it is considered a lightweight in comparison to the group's leading brands, Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.

Over the past days, sales of McQueen's clothes and accessories have surged, as fashion fans rush to grab mementos.

The designer had a strong following among pop stars such as Lady Gaga who recently donned his towering lobster claw shoes for one of her music videos.

At a British awards show on Tuesday, she took to the stage to perform her song "Telephone" and told the audience: "This is for Alexander McQueen."

McQueen's death caused shock as the Autumn-Winter 2010 Fashion Week opened last weekend. Vogue editor Anna Wintour called him "one of the greatest talents of his generation."

"He brought a uniquely British sense of daring and aesthetic fearlessness to the global stage of fashion," she said.

McQueen was known for hard-edged and sometimes macabre creations that earned him the reputation as fashion's enfant terrible.

He designed the famous "bumster" trousers, which displayed the cleavage between model's buttocks in a parody of the low-slung trousers worn by construction workers.

He once described his work as "eclectic verging on the criminal."

After joining Givenchy in 1996, he toned down some of his shock tactics.

His last collection, for spring/summer 2010, featuring alien inspired make-up and reptilian prints, was praised as his best ever.

McQueen was openly gay and in 2000 had a ceremony of vows with his lover George Forsyth, a documentary filmmaker, on a yacht on Ibiza.