Shaun Leane (jeweller)
Shaun Leane (born 1969)[1] is a British jeweller and metalworker best known for his sculptural pieces created for Alexander McQueen.
Leane started out studying jewellery design in Westminster Kingsway College, aged 15.[2] A year later, he took up an apprenticeship in Hatton Garden.[2][3] In 1995 Leane was working for English Traditional Jewellery, a company that restored antique jewellery for the Bond Street dealers, when he met McQueen.[4]
Leane's first work for McQueen was the creation of watch chains for the 1995 'Highland Rape' collection.[5] Among Leane's best known pieces for McQueen is the 1999 Coiled Corset, a form-encasing bodice created from coils of aluminium.[5][6] Created in collaboration with the artist Kees van der Graaf, the three creators came up with a metal corset inspired by the neck rings worn by Ndebele women.[5] The 97 stacked coils had to be screwed together onto the body of the wearer, model Laura Morgan.[5] Leane has also created a metal yashmak and sculptural mouthpieces and body sculptures for McQueen collections.[5] His 1996 mouthpiece, titled 'Repression,' was originally created for the 1997 McQueen Autumn-Winter collection, and chosen by Isabella Blow as part of a group of garments selected to represent fashions of 1997 in the Fashion Museum, Bath's Dress of the Year collection.[7] Leane and McQueen were close friends and regular collaborators up until McQueen's suicide in 2010.
In 1998, following several successful collaborations with Alexander McQueen, a buyer for Harvey Nichols approached Leane with a view to stocking his first collection.[2] This led to Leane putting together his first commercial collections, which used elements from his work for McQueen.[2] Since then, Leane has collaborated with houses such as Givenchy and Boucheron.[2]
In 2012, Leane noted that his design atelier produced both bespoke commissions and commercial pieces, producing two jewellery collections per year, along with an annual fine jewellery collection and two silver collections for male and female jewellery.[2] An exhibition of his work, including collaborations with Daphne Guinness, Philip Treacy, and Damien Hirst, was held in gallery space owned by the photographer Nick Knight of Showstudio.com in 2014.[4]
References
- ^ "Shaun Leane: Nose ornament". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f Galton, Elizabeth (November 2012). Basics Fashion Design 10: Jewellery Design: From Fashion to Fine Jewellery. A&C Black. pp. 3–6. ISBN 9782940411948. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
- ^ Wilson, Andrew. Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin. Simon and Schuster. p. 89. ISBN 9781476776736.
- ^ a b Fury, Alexander (8 August 2014). "Avant-garde jeweller Shaun Leane spreads his wings at Nick Knight's". The Independent. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
- ^ a b c d e Staff writer. "'Coiled corset', The Museum of Savage Beauty". The Museum of Savage Beauty. Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
- ^ Koda, Harold (2003). Extreme beauty : the body transformed. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 75–76. ISBN 978-0-300-10312-0.
- ^ Lester, Richard (2013). Dress of the year. Antique Collectors' Club. pp. 141–143. ISBN 9781851497256.