The Horoscope of Pisces Fashion Designer Alexander McQueen

I couldn't care less about fashion. Ask my wife. Nonetheless I had vaguely heard of Alexander McQueen, the Piscean fashion designer, who has apparently committed suicide, on the eve of his mother's funeral. And looking at the newspapers, his death is a big story. So it seems appropriate to look at his horoscope, and to see if astrology can give any hints about his untimely death.

Alexander McQueen was born on March 17 1969. We don't have a confirmed time of birth for him, though there is some suggestion that it was 10.45 pm.

But whatever time of day or night Alexander McQueen was born, he was a Pisces. In fact, he was born just before an eclipse of the Sun, and he additionally has the Moon in Pisces, as well as Mercury.

If you want to be a fashion designer, then Pisces is a great star sign to have. Pisceans are very sensitive, and they know what looks good without having to think about it. They're also able to tune into wider, collective currents, and this puts them in touch with the popular mood.

Yet I wouldn't regard Alexander McQueen as having a happy horoscope.

For one thing, his Pisces Sun is close to the fixed star Scheat, which has a rather unfortunate reputation. Fixed stars expert Vivian Robson said of Scheat:

It causes extreme misfortune, murder, suicide, and drowning.

However what really stands out in Alexander McQueen's horoscope is a conjunction between Venus and Saturn, in Aries. Neither planet works well in this sign and at times he might have felt estranged from the people around him.

On the other hand, Venus is the planet of beauty, and it's intimately connected with fashion. At some level his preoccupation with fashion was probably a compensation, an attempt to connect with something that was psychologically missing. Hence the dedication and hard work.

As far as Alexander McQueen's death is concerned, there is no doubt that he was going through a bad patch. Since the end of 2008 there has been a stressful, opposition aspect between the planets Saturn and Uranus, which has been having a negative impact on his Sun and Moon in Pisces.

Also, there is an ancient astrological technique called profections and according to this system his natal Venus-Saturn conjunction was being profected to an opposition of his Moon. Profections are often used for timing, and they do suggest that the first few months of 2010 could have been problematic for him.

In astrology the Moon is connected with the mother, and we do have the symbolism of his mother dying. However I'm not convinced that the astrological situation was disastrous. Alexander McQueen was dealing with some bad energy, but without a confirmed time of birth I don't believe that his death was fated. In other words he probably had a choice.