The pieces created by Shaun Leane in the course of his collaboration with Alexander McQueen were beaten at Sotheby’s. Here are the most requested pieces ♦ ︎
Fashion and jewelry, a weave that has lasted since mankind came down from the trees. In the evolution of the species, we find cases like that of Shaun Leane, designer also famous for his partnership with Alexander McQueen.
Read also: Shaun Leane from Sotheby’s
The auction of unique pieces, entitled Couture Fashion Jewelery: The Personal Archive by Shaun Leane, with over 40 jewels created by the British designer from 1996 to 2008, after the retrospectives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011 and at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 2015, it was particularly awaited.
In fact, the sale was a success, with pieces beaten start from a estimate over 2 million dollars. Which is a high value considering that Shaun Leane’s jewels are not made from gold and diamonds. The most famous piece, the Coiled Corset, has more than doubled its high esteem: it was sold for $ 807,000 after a battle between potential buyers over five minutes. The corset, created for The Overlook collection (autumn-winter 1999-2000 collection by Alexander McQueen), is the only piece of Shaun Leane’s almost twenty-year-long collaboration with the designer signed by both.
«The most beautiful part for me is that these pieces have been admired, appreciated and now accepted in new collections. I’m so happy to know that they will continue to inspire and provoke how they did the first day I created them», said the British designer.
Another controversial piece was The Skeleton Corset, created for the Untitled Spring-Summer 1998 collection: with an estimate of $ 350,000, it was sold for 711,000. The jewel was inspired by the idea of McQueen to show the beauty of the internal structure of the human body and turn it into an external ornament. The white gold glove with diamonds Contra Mundum has grossed 312,500: it is made up of over 4,000 diamonds. Three other works that have far exceeded their pre-sales estimates include the Coiled Collar (on the cover of the 1997 Homogenic album by Björk) and the Silver Crown of Thorns (created for the Dante Fall-Winter 1996-97 collection) by Alexander McQueen). Federico Graglia