Sylvie Guillem recently starred in a production called Eonnagata for Sadler’s Wells, dressed entirely by Alexander McQueen. Teaming up with the renegade ballerina was something new for the maverick designer. He was, of course, no stranger to histrionic design, but had never developed costumes for the theatre. McQueen’s creations for Eonnagata were true to his aesthetic; all billowing tulle, structured bustles, and oversized crimson fans – in short, a diaphanous visual feast.

McQueen studied fashion at the iconic Central St. Martins in London, then the art of tailoring through apprenticeships on Saville Row, where he whittled his pattern-cutting technique down to perfection; all this to abandon fashion’s rules and limitations. In throwing off the conventions he created some of the most sensational clothes of the early 21st century. Much like Madame Guillem herself, who studied the purest of classical ballet techniques in order to relinquish them, McQueen’s fantastical and rebellious imagination flourished precisely because he understood the beauty of a flawless cut.

McQueen defied numerous fashion luminaries to earn himself the title l’enfant terrible. His runway shows were escapist spectacles. He would often hold performances in abandoned London locations in the middle of cold winter nights. His most recent production, his last, unveiled those shoes. Dubbed the ‘Armadillos’, the alien hoof-like constructions were made famous by one prancing and dancing Lady Gaga in the Bad Romance film clip.

As the Alexander McQueen online store sells out of his most famed creations, a ring adorned in delicate enamel flowers and a single dark skull evokes his aesthetic better than any other piece – a testament of his struggle to acknowledge beauty yet defy it.