When Nick Waplington began to document the making of Alexander McQueen's fifteenth anniversary collection, the Horn of Plenty, he had no idea it would be one of the visionary's last.When Nick Waplington began to document the making of Alexander McQueen's fifteenth anniversary collection, the Horn of Plenty, he had no idea it would be one of the visionary's last. A friend of the late designer, Waplington, who was living in Israel and shooting another project when McQueen approached him about the collaboration in 2007, chronicled Fall 2009′s production for six months. He watched its inception in the designer's London studio—snapping away at model fittings and mood boards—and followed it all the way through to its now-legendary trip down a Paris runway, which was covered in heaps of spray-painted rubbish from McQueen's previous sets.

The resulting book, dubbed Alexander McQueen: Working Process, provides an intimate look at McQueen, his team (including Sarah Burton), and his methods—its pages depicting everything from moments of pain and anxiety to bursts of joy and laughter. "This project offers unprecedented insight into the mind of a notoriously private and at times willfully impenetrable man," writes journalist Susannah Frankel, who worked closely with the designer, in the tome's introduction. What's more is that the book, which Waplington describes as "a historical document," was largely edited by McQueen himself: He finished his selection before his tragic suicide in 2010. "It's really the last thing he ever made," Waplington said. Below, the photographer talks to Style.com about capturing the designer's legacy, his experience inside the luminary's studio, and what he learned of the real McQueen.
POST: 2026-08-26