Alexander McQueen, the high-fashion designer who died last year at the age of 40, has made an unusual provision in his will.
McQueen hanged himself a day before the funeral of his mother, and his body was found by one of his two housekeepers. The designer had taken a cocktail of sedatives and cocaine. One of his two housekeepers found his body, and each was bequeathed £50,000 by McQueen in his will.
But the designer also loved his three dogs- Minter, Juice and Callum- and and left £50,000 per pup from his £16,036,500 to be set aside in a fund for their lifelong care. ($82,000 in US Dollars.) The remaining bulk of McQueen’s fortune went to several charities:
Four charities – The Terrence Higgins Trust, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the London Buddhist Centre and the Blue Cross sick animal centre in Burford, Oxfordshire – have received £100,000 each.
The designer left the remainder of his estate in a trust for his Sarabande charity, which shares a name with his spring/summer 2007 collection famous for including a dress adorned with fresh flowers.
It’s believed that the hugely successful fashion maven (known as “Lee” to family and friends) was experiencing tremendous work pressure and buckled under the stress of his mother’s passing. An inquest noted a single message from McQueen inscribed on a book found near his body: ”Look after my dogs, sorry, I love you, Lee.”
