1o reasons why Alexander McQueen was on the cover of The Face in April 1998

1. Because he leans over and kisses his mum, Joyce, when he’s taking his bows on the catwalk.

2. Because everybody else did All Saints.

3. Because when he trained at Savile Row, he sewed a label inside a jacket designed for the Prince of Wales, saying “I am a cunt”

4. …or was it “McQueen was here”?

5. Because in interviews, he says things like “I don’t know whether I can survive in fashion without murdering somebody”

6. Because Suzy Menkes, one of the few fashion journalists who knows what she’s talking about, wrote that he’s “not just a fine tailor with a soaring imagination, but one of those rare designers who catches the spirit of the times”

7. Because “it’s unlikely that a Briton would achieve what he has, but for a pupil from an all-male comprehensive in deepest Newham it is incredible” (his headmaster Richard Jarman Rokeby Comprehensive)

8. Because he turned up in Milan on a whim, with nowhere to stay and hardly any money, and blagged a job with Romeo Gigli.

9. Because he puts art in fashion and takes fashion’s head out its arse.

10. Just because, OK?