There were the bin bags stuffed with Alexander McQueen’s entire 1993 Taxi Driver collection, dumped near a King’s Cross nightclub to dodge the coat-check charge, then cleared and never seen again; the smashed-up 1970s car which caught fire at Borough Market when a guest knocked over a flaming grease pot during a power cut before It’s a Jungle Out There in 1997; and on the runway, that extraordinary 1998 moment Shalom Harlow held her poise on a spinning disc at Gatliff Road Warehouse, a disused bus depot in Victoria, as robots spat spray paint at her white dress like cobras.
The well of fashion lore surrounding Lee McQueen and the city where he was born, trained and propelled to become the greatest designer of his generation is bottomless. Now, London is set to trill with excitement once again as the British house, which has shown at Paris Fashion Week for the past 25 years, comes home.
