BIBLE. audiobook only. 

On the one hand I understand why the author decided to put these two designers into one book, but just as I felt somehow disgusted by fashion people mourning Galliano's demise from Dior as a result of his profoundly unsubtle antisemitic rants in a similar way they mourned McQueen's death by suicide, I kind of...dislike the author pretty much doing the same. Early in the book, we see some seeds of why a person out of their mind on drugs/booze might slide into antisemitism (Catholic mother, early childhood growing up on a Jewish street in Gibraltar, first boyfriend being Jewish), but it' never followed up on thus when the book gets around to the incident. 

Anyway, it's a good book, a very good book, lots of information. Perhaps a bit too much, the marathon of "and then he did this collection and then he did that collection" with periods of fucked up behaviour In-between can be a bit monotonous, but perhaps that's the point.

Anyway, McQueen is pretty much one of my favourite artists. I knew the general overview but definitely not the level of (mainly sad) detail if his life and work I'm glad I read this....even though it made for a shit bed read. Book reading is my offline time, and I had to look up collections every two pages, hence why it took me (IMO) way too long to get through the book. Anyway, a solid 4/5

 it's been a ride to read this as condé nast has rolled out a series of efforts to bring john galliano back into the public eye and possibly into a more prestige house than maison margiela. it shows the initial stages of a process that is unfolding right now, in the case of john galliano's career and image rehabilitation, but also in the production of runway fashion as spectacle ultimately geared towards sales of more affordable mass-produced luxury items, the rise of the fashion conglomerate and the evolution of the figure of the designer into that of the creative director. 

as a double biography it's sort of episodic and formulaic in its structure, but i suppose that's due to the sheer amount of information that has to be condensed in one book. the downside to that is that whatever reflection or insight it has on mcqueen and galliano as people or participants in their relationships with the people around them are concise to the point of feeling somewhat shallow, and its eventual conclusion as well as thomas' take on the phenomenon that their two stories describe seem rushed. 

that said, the information in itself is interesting and a total blast to read with a tab of vogue runway open, and just the accumulation of it shows the effect of a large-scale economic process on the actual bodies of the people participating in it; i just wish this was explored further.