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The Designer Who Plans to Make Handbags Out of Alexander McQueen's Skin

Art student Tina Gorjanc has designed a line of leather goods that would make use of the deceased designer's DNA—and could ultimately have freckles or get a sunburn.
Images courtesy of the artist

Since the prolific designer's suicide in 2010, Alexander McQueen's legacy has grown. A little more than a year after his death, the Metropolitan Museum of Art held an exhibition of McQueen's works. Savage Beauty inspired block-wrapping lines of expectant exhibit goers. Last year, three pairs of the McQueen Armadillo boots popularized in Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video were bought by Gaga herself for almost $300,000 at auction.

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Now, the designer's name is once again in the news—but this time it's about his existing genetic information. Tina Gorjanc, a recent graduate of London's Central Saint Martins art and design school, is working on a project that aims to one day use McQueen's DNA to grow cell cultures from which she would then extract skin cells to make leather jackets and bags.

Read more: Designer Creates Dress Made Entirely Out of Strangers' Pubic Hair

Earlier this month, Gorjanc, a graduate of the university's Material Futures program, which awards a master's degree, showcased her Pure Human Project as part of her degree show. On display were leather motorcycle jackets with layers of color and silicon added to enhance the similarity to McQueen's own skin. On some pieces, she added "freckles"; others had tattoos that replicated McQueen's.

While Gorjanc used pig skin in the exhibition, she could use McQueen's DNA to make the next collection. While some sources have reported that Gorjanc is growing Alexander McQueen's skin through hair particles, the artist clarified to Broadly that she has not—yet. "Tests made in the laboratory were purely intended to help me understand the technology and see how far I can exploit it," she said. "This technology still has a long way to go."

How it works: Through a process called de-extinction, "you can take genetic information from a source— usually hair, skin, or bone—and use the extracted information to biologically program an existing skin draft," Gorjanc explained. Afterwards, the skin with the extracted DNA would grow to mimic the tissue of the original source, at which point it could be tanned and processed into leather for bags, jackets, and backpacks. The final result could be tattooed directly, or even get a sunburn.

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The DNA sample that Gorjanc wants to use to potentially grow human skin comes from one of McQueen's first fashion shows, "Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims." In 1992, for his Central Saint Martins graduate collection, McQueen designed a collection referring to the Victorian-era tradition of prostitutes selling locks of their own hair, which people would purchase to gift to their lovers. McQueen used his own hair to further embellish and customize his designs. (Multiple outlets have reported that Gorjanc has access to this collection in order to use the hair for her work; Gorjanc says this is false, though she says she has spoken with the unnamed institution in possession of the collection. "Nothing was completely finalized," she said, citing advances in de-extinction technology that would need to occur before final completion of the project.)

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While the novelty of using a deceased designer's DNA to produce jackets and bags is enough for some, Gorjanc envisioned the project as an ethical wakeup call for the world. "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 said to Dezeen magazine.

While developing Pure Human, Gorjanc was inspired by reading about the life of Henrietta Lacks, the African American woman whose cancer cells were extracted for scientific research without her knowledge in the 1950s. "Doctors extracted biological material from patients and ended up copyrighting and using the material for product developments. The patients never gave their consent and had no benefits," Gorjanc said.

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Gorjanc doesn't plan on commercializing the project anytime soon; instead, she hopes it will ultimately bring attention to the lack of legal protection for biological information. "It's a critical and speculative design provocation—the message is way stronger than any commercial application of such a technology," she said.

To further showcase the lack of legal regulations on genetic information, Gorjanc filed a patent application this May. The patent would protect the bioengineered genetic material Gorjanc could potentially make through the process of de-extinction. While the genetic information itself is not patentable, "products made out of genetic information are"—meaning corporations could potentially exploit this loophole.

"Today, the luxury industry is investing in biotechnologies, but the source of some products developed come from 'leftovers' from surgical patients," Gorjanc said. "The cells are produced into products and then copyrighted by the manufacturing company."

As for the current legal recourse, the United Kingdom's Human Tissue Act requires informed consent of the donor before their tissues can become legally available for use in research (or whatever else—except for sale), but it does not cover the hair or nails from a living person. In the United States, one relinquishes any ownership rights with "abandoned" tissue such as leftover hair from a haircut.

Gorjanc chose to (hypothetically) use McQueen's DNA both because of the obvious aesthetic connections and because he "has an enormous brand empire that is protected with numerous copyrights and still has relatives that have inherited his possessions; however, his genetic information is still not well protected." Gorjanc says a representative from the company attended the Central Saint Martins degree show and spoke with her there. (A representative from Alexander McQueen told Broadly the house wasn't approached about the project beforehand and has not endorsed it.) Since McQueen was known for his constant innovation and flair for the dark and macabre, Gorjanc said that former friends of the designer have told her McQueen would probably have liked her work.


Note: An earlier version of this article suggested that the Alexander McQueen brand was aware and supportive of Gorjanc's project before it showed at Central Saint Martins. The brand was not aware of the project prior to the show and has not endorsed it.