Alexander McQueen was an inspiration to me.

There was something daring about his clothes. Something naughty and slightly off-kilter. They were about taking the places inside that we keep private, and transforming them into these intricately cut garments that forced them to the surface. Walking into his boutique in Osaka was one of my favorite things to do, just to feel the clothes, look at how they were tailored, dream of having the money, and the audacity, to wear something more than one of his skull scarves or a t-shirt.

This is the L.A. store. I visited it back in October, and I loved being there. The man hanging from the rafters is now prophetic and sad. He isn’t actually hanging though.

I loved his Puma collaboration. My white trainers came with a sharp metal fang that I loved too much to remove from the shoes, until they began to scar the outside of the white leather. I eventually took the fang off, not because I disliked what it was doing to the shoes, but because I never wanted to look down and see it missing.

Then there was the women’s wear. Whether he was misogynistic or not, as a man, a woman dressed in McQueen was scary and desiring. His last collection (where Lady GaGa premiered Bad Romance) was about these computer generated scale prints, vaguely reptilian or fish like, but when I saw them paraded down the runway, I thought that he had created a feminine praying mantis. They were scary, and deadly, and incredibly alluring.

However, my favorite collection was probably Autumn 2007. Themed after the witch hunts, he played with long sleek shapes, tall hairdos, and darkness. Models walked a red pentagram drawn on a dark floor, lit only by spotlights following them. A few weeks after I saw this show on TV, I walked into PlatinumGames for the first time and saw Bayonetta. She is, and always will be, the Alexander McQueen model of video games to me. I saw her and instantly I identified his influence in her.

Watch that, and tell me if you still think Bayonetta’s proportions are “off”. Alexander McQueen used scissors and fabric to make these women look larger than life. And yet they still seem dangerous, and intensely sexy. If Bayonetta were real, I bet she would have adored Alexander McQueen.

But now he is gone. Life is a little bit more mundane. Women are a little less sexy. The world is a little less dangerous.

Thank you.