At the glamorous party that followed her fashion show in Milan last September, Donatella Versace confided in me that she feels 'horribly sick' every time she waits to see her latest collection go down the runway. Just before she was whisked away to air kiss with Janet Jackson she leaned towards me and, with eyelids a flutter, whispered that she 'wouldn't have it any other way'. DV's message, that creativity is necessarily a bruising and hurtful process, was brought home in the most distressing fashion by the death of Alexander McQueen, whose life-threatening degree of genius finally pushed him over the edge last month - assisted by the death of his mother and an over-ambitious work schedule that could have felled anybody, let alone a man in fragile health. McQueen's suicide could have killed his ambitious eponymous label but PPR (which also owns Gucci) has pledged to continue the designer's legacy and it is to be congratulated for that. So as you embark on the multicourse visual feast that awaits you in the pages ahead please study the work of the world's greatest designers with a little more care than usual. In doing so it may become apparent that fashion and art have become forever entwined and that the pieces displayed herein often represent a breathtaking triumph of the creative spirit. And if some of the pictures in our gorgeous photo shoots should send a shiver down your spine don't be scared - it is just the lovely ghost of Alexander McQueen passing by, reminding you that this is all about beauty, that most gentle and demanding of masters.
