Alexander McQueen

"I always wanted to be a designer. I read books on fashion from the age of 12."

"I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists."

"There is something sinister, something quite biographical about what I do - but that part is for me. It's my personal business. I think there is a lot of romance, melancholy. There's a sadness to it, but there's romance in sadness. I suppose I am a very melancholy person."

"I come from a different era and I design clothes for our era. I think of people I want to dress when I design."

"Now I design what I want to wear, and it works that way."

"I can design a collection in a day and I always do, cause I've always got a load of Italians on my back, moaning that it's late."