Young UK based designer Tina Gorjanc has sent the fashion world into a spin with her new conceptual range of leather clothes and accessories made from skin created from the DNA of the late fashion designer and former student of Central Saint Martins, Alexander McQueen.
Her “Pure Human” project featuring ‘human leather goods’ will involve the sourcing of McQueen’s DNA and while you might think – where on earth is she getting Alexander McQueens hair from? – she has already thought of that. One of McQueens first collections ‘Jack the ripper stalks his victims’ includes a lock of his hair protected by a piece of Perspex. Gorjanc has even already had the concept patented in May and had the owner of the McQueen collection to give her a piece of hair. She has even made mock-ups of the collection using pigskin. This project was created as part of Central Saint Martins’ Material Futures MA and presented at the schools end of year show.
In an interview with Dezeen Gorjanc said “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.” The proposed process for the collection is to extract the DNA from the hair and implement it into a cell culture, once this is done it will be harvested for skin tissue. Once the skin tissue has been grown it would then be tanned and processed much like other leathers.
“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.” – Gorjanc
To maintain the authenticity of the collection Gorjanc plans to add freckles and tattoos exactly the same and in the same locations on the skin to fully imitate the skin of McQueen.
As well as being a one of a kind concept the collection also strives to highlight the demanding nature of the luxury market.
“The growing appetite of the industry to indulge in the exotic is shifting its interest towards undiscovered domains and technologies that are redefining the value of luxury,” – Gorjanc
It will be interesting to see if Gorjanc will be able to carry out the concept and show us all a finished product.