The most astonishing parts of the film are not footage from the shows — though they are truly incredible — but the piecing together of Lee’s unlikely journey to the top. "I wasn't very good at school. I was always drawing clothes," he says in one recording. But despite the boundaries of class, Lee saw a route to make his dreams come true and worked doggedly to pursue it. He trained as a tailor’s apprentice, working on Savile Row in London, then at a theater costumier — all before flying to Italy (without a contact) to find a job in an atelier there, which he did, working as an assistant to Romeo Gigli. When he returned to the UK, he was accepted into the storied MA Fashion course at Central Saint Martins. Lacking any financial aid, his aunt helped to pay the fees. As a voice in the trailer says: "No one discovered Alexander McQueen. Alexander McQueen discovered himself."