>> Friends and family — among the 1,200 guests were Kate Moss, Sarah Jessica Parker, Naomi Campbell, Daphne Guinness, Hamish Bowles, Karen Elson, Stella Tennant, Hussein Chalayan, Roland Mouret, Antonio Berardi, Philip Treacy, Francois Henri Pinault (whom McQueen called Henry), and Stella McCartney — gathered this morning at St. Paul's Cathedral in London in honor of Lee Alexander McQueen, who took his own life in February.
Shaun Leane, Suzy Menkes, Annabelle Nielson, and Anna Wintour all spoke at the 70-minute memorial service, with Wintour recalling McQueen's tendency for last minute cancellations and his "often savage tongue": "He never appeared much at ease with himself, and he didn't care about the politics of fashion. The world that he loved was inside the atelier . . . He showed us everything was possible; dreams could become reality." Bjork gave a performance of Billie Holiday's "Gloomy Sunday" dressed in an angelic McQueen costume, and afterward, as guests dispersed, the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland played the theme of Braveheart on their bagpipes.
