Wednesday 18th March 2015

Last Thursday I was recovering over breakfast from a horrible lowering virus with cold and cough, when Alexander McQueen came on the TV because of the great show opening at the V and A . I texted to Genevieve Suzy of the magazine world: ‘Alexander McQueen!’. She replied at once: ‘The press preview is at 10 am.’ It was then 9.40. So I had two minutes to assume one of the most important outfits of my life. It was my Prada turquoise mac with Prada stretch jodphurs. By 10.10 I was there. ‘Who are you?’ they said on the door, peering at clipboard. ‘I could be a number of people,’ I said, naming various emanations of Dainty Lady TV . None were listed, not even Dainty Lady TV in general but they let me in anyway. So I was examining the early work, much of which belongs to my neighbour who was Alexander McQueen’s right-hand woman from the beginning, thinking it wasn’t perfect, that there was a puckered fly or a rucked seam when a call kept coming through with the Gay Mother’s area code. Finally, in the room with the menacing bird jacket, with feathers laid as if an actual bird, I took the call. It was Cousin Smurry to say that Aunt Smidge had died. Thus in death-laden Alexander McQueen death came. Aunt Smidge was perfectly all right at Christmas, although 89. We always Christmas and Easter with her and Cousin Smurry who has more recently taken to doing Ottolenghi. Now she’s vanished. Quite gone. I was deputed to inform the Gay Mother and Aunt Lavinia who were both shattered but very quickly robust.

It was rather the end of the Alexander McQueen exhibition, although I recognised that it grew and grew in splendour and spectacle. In one room, exhibits are stacked to the ceiling. Suzy Menkes was in that room. She now has a minion to carry her notebook. Then I ran into the curator, who I’d seen on TV at home, about to do another piece to camera. ‘You’ve had a busy morning,’ I said. ‘Nice jacket,’ she said, of my turquoise Prada mac. If only I’d kept my frockage in storage through the years. No hope of a V and A exhib of my life in frockage for after I’m gone.

Early Alexander McQueen Suit Belonging to my Neighbour with Puckered Fly

Odd Stain? Early Alexander McQueen

Menacing Bird Outfit in the Room Where Aunt Smidge’s Passing was Announced

The Curator of the Show: She Admired my Mac

The Great Room, with Frocks Stacked to the Ceiling: Suzy Menkes Present