Before the runway, there is a moment of stillness. In Mira Chai-Hyde’s photographs from Irere, Spring/Summer 2003, Shaun Leane’s quills and feathers gather around the face, extending its outline.

The jewellery is close to skin, hair and clothing. Seen at this distance, its force belongs as much to the person wearing it as to the material itself.

These portraits are held in the Mira Chai-Hyde Alexander McQueen Archive, among the records of the people who made the complete look possible.

Leane brought a traditional goldsmith’s precision into McQueen’s experimental studio. His Hatton Garden training included fine jewellery and the restoration of antique pieces: years spent understanding how metal could be formed, joined and finished.

In his 2024 interview with 10 Magazine, he recalled meeting McQueen through their mutual friend Simon Ungles. A visit to Leane’s atelier became the beginning of a friendship and a sustained creative exchange.

McQueen gave those skills room to become something unfamiliar. Leane gave the imagined forms a means of being made and worn.

For The Overlook, Autumn/Winter 1999, the Coiled Corset followed the torso in individually shaped aluminium rings. A demanding construction produced an almost flowing surface.

The Yashmak, created for Eye, Spring/Summer 2000, extended ornament across the head, shoulders and torso. Linked metal plates gave its jewelled surface flexibility.

For Givenchy Haute Couture, Spring/Summer 2000, roses rose from a polished metal corset. Across these works, jewellery became an essential part of the silhouette, with the wearer’s body setting its proportions.

For Irere, Spring/Summer 2003, Leane’s silver and porcupine-quill earrings extended the face in a fan of tapering lines. The V&A records the materials and collection.

Feathers offered another possibility, gathering colour and texture around the head. In Mira’s backstage portraits, both materials remain close to the people wearing them: spectacular forms within an intimate moment of preparation.

A fitting has its own concentration. Ann Ray’s photographs catch hands still at work, metal reflecting the room and collaborators gathered around a wearer.

Mira’s portraits from Irere keep another kind of closeness. Taken before the runway, they preserve the people and preparations behind the finished look.

Explore Mira’s photographs from Irere, within her account of working alongside McQueen.

The jewellery has become part of fashion history. These photographs keep its making—and the friendships around it—in view.

Explore the Mira Chai-Hyde Alexander McQueen Archive, or read the conversation with Mira.