"Male Jaw-Piece"

Alexander McQueen|Shaun Leane|Alexander McQueen

spring/summer 1998 · silver-plated aluminum · Costume Institute

British jewelry designer Shaun Leane trained and worked as a goldsmith and fine jeweler before collaborating with designer Alexander McQueen in the early 1990s. For McQueen, Leane experimented with non-precious and unconventional materials in designs for atavistic and fetishistic objects. Leane created this jaw-piece, a cast aluminum section of a male jaw with broken and missing teeth, along with a female version and a cast aluminum “Spine” corset, to expose the anatomical structure of the body. The skeletal pieces draw on the tradition of memento mori jewelry, with cast bone serving as a reference to death and the transience of human experience.

Artist

Alexander McQueen|Shaun Leane|Alexander McQueen

Date

spring/summer 1998

Medium

silver-plated aluminum

Culture

British

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Purchase, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, 2018