How Alexander McQueen changed fashion

He redefined womenswear

McQueen loved women - he surrounded himself with strong female figures, including his beloved mother Joyce, as well as fashion editor and mentor Isabella Blow. He was accused of being a misogynist after his show entitled Highland Rape, which saw dishevelled models walk down the catwalk wearing ripped torn clothes. McQueen said it wasn't about the rape of women, but rather about his Scottish history. Blow once noted that he had changed the way women walked by moving the silhouette past the hips. While his outlook on women was sometimes brutal and he often played with the idea of women as prey and predators, they were never victims and their clothes were amour. "They don't look vulnerable," Professor Claire Wilcox, senior fashion curator, told the Guardian. "Actually, they look like they might punch you."

He created the bumster (therefore low slung trousers)

His bumster trousers were first introduced in 1996 - low-slung hipsters, narrowly skimming the pubis and displaying the top of your bum cheeks. Apparently, Kylie Minogue was the only person to buy a pair, but it sparked a ubiquitous trend for low-slung styles. "To me, that part of the body - not so much the buttocks but the bottom of the spine - that's the most erotic part of anyone's body, man or woman," he said in 2009. An original pair of bumsters were sold for an impressive £3,500 in December.

He made skull prints ubiquitous

Considering the tragic ending to McQueen's life (the designer hung himself on 10 February 2010), it feels somewhat morbid that one of his most commercially successful designs was his skull printed scarf - spawning many high street copies. It's an item that's been favoured by some of the world's biggest stars, including Kate Moss, Johnny Depp and Kim Kardashian.

He created a new form of beauty

Alexander McQueen was a Francis Bacon of fashion, turning the macabre and dark into an otherworldly beauty and art. He was romantic, passionate and intense and fascinated by death and nature. Animal symbolism often featured within his work, a nod to fragility and strength. One of his most famous creations came by way of the Armadillo shoe, which was shaped like a lobster claw and with a staggering 12-inch heel.

He taught the importance of craftsmanship

McQueen wasn't just an ideas man. He started his career at Savile Row at Anderson & Sheppard, where he made suits for Prince Charles. Legend has it that he used to sew expletive-filled messages into the linings, reading sweet things such as "I am a c**t." He also worked for Koji Tatsuno and Romeo Gigli, before enlisting at Central Saint Martins to do fashion design. He was a maestro of tailoring - those "bumsters" would not have worked had McQueen not have known his proportions.

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Click through the gallery below to see a preview of the exhibition:

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, in partnership with Swarovski, supported by American Express, with thanks to Mac cosmetics and made possible with the co-operation with Alexander McQueen, runs from 14 March until 2 August.