These Aren’t Fashion Documentaries (Even If They’re About Fashion Stars)

They all came from humble backgrounds, far from the glamour and glare of the fashion world. They all rose to the top, with collateral damage along the way. They are all household names — at least to those who care about clothes. The British designers Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood, and the American editor André Leon Talley are the subjects of new documentaries that offer peepholes into their extraordinary lives and talents, and on the no-less-extraordinary world of haute couture. In these films, the three subjects at first appear almost entirely unalike. McQueen, who committed suicide in 2010, is tense, driven and fatally lonely — creating fashion shows about rape, madness and abuse — even as he crafted some of the most exquisitely beautiful and inventive clothes of his epoch. Read more at The New York Times.