The death of designer Alexander McQueen strikes at the fashion industry's creative core, not because he had the most lucrative business or because he launched the greatest number of trends that trickled down to suburban malls. Instead, McQueen represented the kind of volatile imagination that transforms clothes into a cultural tapestry, intensely personal therapy and political provocation.

The British designer, who was found dead Thursday in his London home, was 40 years old. The death was an apparent suicide. It had been a long time since he'd been considered an enfant terrible. But he, more than any of the 20-something designers working today (who like to consider themselvessubversive), was able to use fashion as a tool for agitating folks out of their preconceived notions about femininity, power and even romance. Over the course of a career that lasted more than 15 years, he tackled the social impact of body-cloaking chadors, the stigma of disability, the role of technology in dehumanizing our lives, the historical subjugation of women and even the way in which modern women sometimes allow themselves to be victims -- sometimes of society and sometimes of fashion.

-The Washington Post