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London designer intends to make clothes with the lab-grown skin of the late Alexander McQueen
07.18.2016
03:11 pm
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When the fashion designer Alexander McQueen sewed locks of his hair into his 1992 show “Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims,” it probably never crossed his mind that he was giving some scientifically oriented person in the future a way to generate human tissue with his own genetic material.

But the year is now 2016, and that’s exactly what student Tina Gorjanc is doing—and she’s doing it, remarkably, as a way of emulating McQueen himself, by making clothes out of skin grown from McQueen’s DNA.

McQueen, one of the most arresting and experimental fashion designers of our time, committed suicide in 2010; the next year, Savage Beauty, a retrospective of his creations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art curated by Andrew Bolton, was by far the most talked about show of 2011, causing patrons to wait for hours in lengthy lines stretching around the block.

As part of her “Pure Human” project, Gorjanc, a student at London’s Central Saint Martins art school, is sourcing the iconic designer’s DNA from the locks of his own hair that were incorporated into his first collection inspired by Jack the Ripper. She has already filed a patent on it after convincing the owner of the collection to give her some of McQueen’s genetic material.

We’re still a ways away from actual objects made out of skin with McQueen’s DNA. Gorjanc’s designs at Central Saint Martins’ end-of-year show were speculative designs using pig skin offcuts, chosen for their resemblance to human skin, and with layers of colour and silicon applied to the surface of the leather to enhance the similarity.

However, the plan is for Gorjanc harvesting McQueen’s DNA into skin tissue, which will then be tanned and turned into human leather.

Gorjanc gave the following comment to Dezeen Magazine:
 

The Pure Human project was designed as a critical design project that aims to address shortcomings concerning the protection of biological information and move the debate forward using current legal structures. ... If a student like me was able to patent a material extracted from Alexander McQueen’s biological information as there was no legislation to stop me, we can only imagine what big corporations with bigger funding are going to be capable of doing in the future.

 
Hey, it might be creepy, but at least she didn’t resort to the collection methods used by fashion desinger Jame Gumb in Thomas Harris’ novel The Silence of the Lambs......
 

 

 
Much more after the jump…....

READ ON
Posted by Martin Schneider
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07.18.2016
03:11 pm
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Full-length gown made out 50,000 gummy bears, inspired by an Alexander McQueen design
07.06.2012
03:22 pm
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I never really understood the Internets’ fascination with gummy bears. It all seemed a little pointless, and silly to me.

Until now!

Maybe I’m moving over to the darkside or something, becasue I simply adore this 220-pound Alexander McQueen-inspired gown constructed by Hissa Igarashi and Sayuri Marakumi for TWELV magazine.

To create the masterpiece, steel wire was twisted into the shape of the dress and covered with a sheet of vinyl. Then 50,000 gummy bears were painstakingly glued on by hand in a colorful pattern reminiscent of a Chevron rainbow.

Taking three weeks to complete, the final dress was fitted exactly to MAJOR model Jessica Pitti’s measurements. And weighing in at approximately 220 pounds, required the strength of three adults to move.

 
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Below, the Alexander McQueen dress Hissa Igarashi and Sayuri Marakumi took their inspiration from.
 
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Via Laughing Squid

Posted by Tara McGinley
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07.06.2012
03:22 pm
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Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2010 Shoe Collection
10.09.2009
01:00 pm
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Posted by Tara McGinley
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10.09.2009
01:00 pm
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