Shaun Leane (born 8 July 1969) is a British jewellery designer best known for his sculptural pieces created for Alexander McQueen. His eponymous jewellery brand is a four-time winner of the UK Jewellery Designer of the Year award.Alice Casely-Hayford, "Shaun Leane: The Interview," Hunger TV, 12 March 2015.
Early life and education Leane was born and raised in Finsbury Park, London, the only child to an Irish father and an English mother.Sarah Mower, "Danger: rocks," The Telegraph, 9 December 2006. His father worked in construction and his mother Diane as a mental health carer.
Leane attended St. Aidan's Primary School in Finsbury Park, and then St Thomas More RC for secondary. Leane left school aged 14 to work for his father's construction firm. At 15, a chance meeting with a career advisor preceded Leane enrolling in a youth training scheme for jewellery design at Kingsway Princeton College of Further Education in Clerkenwell. The college course was metalwork, teaching sculpture and jewellery.
Leane completed the metalwork course at Princeton college and his work was noticed by a course instructor who recommended students for scholarships within the industry. He started a seven-year apprenticeship with English Traditional Jewellery in Hatton Garden, where he became a classically trained goldsmith."The Birth of Shaun Leane," Professional Jeweller, 14 June 2010."Shaun Leane talks to GOJD," Guild of Jewellery Designers. Accessed 1 February 2017. It was there that he undertook antique restorations of Victorian, Art Nouveau and Art Deco jewellery.
Career In the English Traditional Jewellery workshop, Leane was mentored by Brian Joslin and Richard Bullock and learnt the disciplines of the craft, transitioning from copper to gold in six months. Goldsmithing skills Leane learnt during his apprenticeship included making intricate, composite fastenings; complex setting techniques, such as invisible settings which hold square cut gems in place; and restoration of period pieces with acute attention to detail and focus on preserving their beauty from the back as well as front. Leane also repaired and restored antique jewels for dealers at Grays Antiques in Mayfair, Bermondsey Square Market and other antique shops.
At 18 years old, Leane was making diamond tiaras for London's prestigious houses, including Mappin & Webb, Garrard and Asprey. His clients included the British royal family.
In 1992, a year after completing his apprenticeship, a friend introduced Leane to Alexander McQueen, who was then studying at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.Carol Woolton, "Alexander McQueen's legacy in jewellery," Financial Times, 13 March 2015.Dan Howarth, "'Alexander McQueen changed fashion and I changed jewellery' says Shaun Leane," De Zeen, 7 August 2015. The next year, McQueen asked Leane to create Victorian-style silver fob watch chains for his show, Highland Rape. Leane had to teach himself new techniques to create the large finale pieces for McQueen's shows.
Leane was soon working on eight shows a year for McQueen and Givenchy. His designs for McQueen went from small jewels in the early shows to larger and more avant-garde designs such as a spine skeleton corset for the Spring/Summer 1998 show Untitled.Sarah Royce-Greensill, "Shaun Leane remembers McQueen," The Telegraph, 29 March 2015. 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.
Leane worked with McQueen on a neckpiece, inspired by the neckpieces worn by the Ndebele women of South Africa, for McQueen's "It's a Jungle out There" collection in 1997. It was worn by Björk on the cover of her 1997 album Homogenic. After creating that piece, McQueen asked Leane if he could create a similar piece to fit the entire torso, and for McQueen's Autumn/Winter 1999 catwalk show, The Overlook, Leane created the Coiled Corset, a form-encasing bodice created from coils of aluminum. Artist Kees van der Graaf created a concrete cast of the body of model Laura Morgan, around which Leane created a metal corset. Leane has called the piece his highlight in working with McQueen, and his most challenging project.Vanessa Lau, "Five minutes with McQueen's jewelry master, Shaun Leane," W, July 2009. He spent 16 hours a day for 10 weeks creating it.Lindsay Baker, "Alexander McQueen: Fashion's dark fairytale," BBC, 13 March 2015.
For the Spring/Summer 2000 show, Eye, Leane created a yashmak made from chainmail. For the 2001 Autumn/Winter show What a Merry Go Round, Leane taught himself taxidermy to create earrings of pheasant claws clutching Tahitian pearls. Later, Leane created star and moon headdresses for the Autumn/Winter 2007 show, In Memory of Elizabeth Howe, Salem, 1692, inspired by antique vintage Victorian brooches but designed to be worn as headdresses.David Belcher, "Shaun Leane: Remembering Fierce Designs and Pheasant Claws," New York Times, 13 May 2015. Leane and McQueen worked together until McQueen's death in 2010. Leane gave an address at the memorial service for McQueen on 20 September 2010.Dolly Jones, "The McQueen Memorial," Vogue, 20 September 2010. A selection of over 30 pieces Leane created with McQueen were featured in the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2011, later restaged at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2015.
Shaun Leane Jewellery In 1998, a buyer for Harvey Nichols approached Leane with a view to stocking his first collection. This led to Leane putting together his first commercial collections, which used elements from his work for McQueen. In 1999, Leane founded Shaun Leane Jewellery, a company producing jewellery collections alongside his large-scale fashion pieces, combining traditional craftsmanship with modern design and computer-aided design techniques.Janet Christie, "Jeweller Shaun Leane, a diamond geezer," The Scotsman, 25 May 2014. Sotheby's described his jewellery as "antiques of the future.""Shaun Leane," Goldsmiths' Craft and Design Council. Accessed 1 February 2017. Leane's designs are sold online and at retailers in Britain, Europe, the Middle East and the United States.
Jewellery Designer Ben Rowe joined Shaun Leane in 1999. He became a director in 2007 and was officially named Creative Director in 2011. He left Shaun Leane in December 2016.
Leane has worked with Givenchy, Boucheron, De Beers, Bacardi and Clé de Peau Beauté.Julia Neel, "Boucheron Leanes In," Vogue, 9 October 2008."Asprey unveils Shaun Leane designs," Professional Jeweller, 1 May 2012. Shaun Leane Jewellery has been acquired for the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New YorkShaun Leane, metmuseum.org. Accessed 1 February 2017. and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.Shaun Leane, vam.ac.uk. Accessed 1 February 2017. His jewellery has been worn by Björk, Daphne Guinness, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Elton John, Emma Watson, Kate Moss, Sarah Jessica Parker and the Hassanal Bolkiah.Victoria Engelmann, "A royal true: Kate Middleton stays true to her roots in classic jewellery by British brands," The Jewellery Editor, 7 May 2014.
On 28 May 2024, Shaun Leane, the renowned jewellery brand, entered administration, with Begbies Traynor appointed to oversee the process.
Collaborations and commissions Leane collaborated with Boucheron on a necklace for the label's 150th anniversary in 2008. The 'Queen of The Night' necklace has delicate, blackened gold flowers set with white and brown diamonds and sapphires, which can open and close with hidden buttons. It was unveiled at a party at the Boucheron store in Mayfair, London.Leane was commissioned by Daphne Guinness to create the Contra Mundum, also known as The Diamond Glove, a hand-crafted evening glove crafted from 1,000 grams of 18-carat white gold and set with 5,000 pave white diamonds. The Glove was presented by Jay Jopling in its debut at a private party in London in 2011."Daphne Guinness on the Unveiling of her Collaboration with Shaun Leane," Vogue, 1 July 2011.Samantha Conti, "Daphne Guinness' Golden Glove," Women's Wear Daily, 1 July 2011.Valerie Gladstone, "Jewelry Show Takes Over London Gallery," New York Times, 12 December 2011. It took Leane five years to create.
In 2011, Leane began working with jewellery house Asprey on three new collections, released in May 2012: The Woodland Collection, a series of nature-inspired fine charm jewellery, and The Fern Collection, a series of emerald, diamond and platinum rings, earrings and necklaces inspired by ferns and the Storm Collection, featuring a vortex of diamonds on delicate gold wire. A charms necklace from the Woodland Collection was worn by Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge.
In 2014, SHOWstudio presented SHOWcabinet, the first major exhibition of Leane's work."SHOWcabinet: Shaun Leane," SHOWstudio, 23 May 2014. It was held in gallery space owned by photographer Nick Knight in 2014. Leane worked with Austrian cut lead glass producer Atelier Swarovski to create the 2015 nine-piece jewellery collection Swift."Shaun Leane Collaborates With Atelier Swarovski," 10 Magazine, 17 June 2015.
In 2016, Leane was commissioned by Grainger Plc in collaboration with Futurecity to design the balcony railings and gates across the façade of 21 Young Street - a London residential development in Kensington, designed by Assael Architecture. This was Leane's debut into the architectural and public realm and one of the largest scale commissions in the UK by a jewellery designer. Unveiled in July 2018, Arbour consists of 36 balcony railings and two gates cast in phosphor bronze by British metalwork foundry Chris Brammall. Featuring 1,850 bronze sculpted leaves and three-dimensional branches, the entire piece weighs over four tonnes. The building's façade is inspired by neighbouring Kensington Square and the greenery of the private garden. A replicate of the balcony is on permanent display in the metalwork gallery at the V&A Museum.
On 4 December 2017, Leane's personal archive of couture jewellery was offered for auction by Sotheby's New York in conjunction with Kerry Taylor Auctions. Several of the pieces had appeared in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria & Albert in their retrospectives of Leane's work. Notable pieces from the sale included the Skeleton Corset designed by Leane for McQueen's Untitled collection, Spring-Summer 1998 and the Coiled Corset from The Overlook collection, Autumn-Winter 1999–2000. The Coiled Corset, the only piece signed by both Leane and McQueen, was sold for $807,000, while the Skeleton Corset was sold for $711,000 in the auction.
British Royal Family Leane's jewels have been worn by Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex. In 2019, Princess Beatrice and her fiancé Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi broke with royal tradition when they announced their engagement by naming Leane as the designer of the ring, a detail that Buckingham Palace does not usually reveal.
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