In September 2026, Karen Elson appeared on Seán McGirr’s McQueen Spring/Summer 2027 runway in London wearing a harness of polished silver. Its maker was Shaun Leane, whose collaboration with Lee Alexander McQueen helped establish jewellery as an essential part of the silhouette.

The piece was number seven from 12, Leane’s new independent atelier. Each component of the 2.7-kilogram harness had been raised, forged, engraved and polished by hand. Its silver was recovered from medical X-ray film: a material with a previous life, shaped to follow the body.

After leaving his namesake house in 2024, Leane established a practice limited to twelve private commissions a year. Its scope extends from fine jewellery to sculptural body adornment and objets d’art. The new work continues a longstanding interest in how an object is made, and what it can mean to the person for whom it is created.

Leane learned his craft in Hatton Garden, London’s jewellery quarter. Traditional goldsmithing gave him an exacting understanding of construction, precious metals and stones. Working with McQueen opened those skills to a different scale and an increasingly experimental range of materials.

The Coiled Corset, created for The Overlook, Autumn/Winter 1999–2000, brought jewellery and garment into a single form. Artist Kees van der Graaf made a mould of model Laura Morgan’s torso, around which Leane fitted individually shaped aluminium coils. The finished piece was fastened around its wearer with screws.

Its apparently flowing surface was the result of physically demanding work: curving, hammering and polishing metal until each element followed the body. That relationship between a precise construction and an unexpected form runs through Leane’s practice.

For Boucheron’s Queen of the Night necklace in 2008, he drew on his experience restoring Victorian jewellery to create flowers that opened through a mechanism. An old technique became the means of making a new idea move.

Goldsmiths, silversmiths, engravers, enamellers and box makers come together around each commission. Clients may be private collectors, designers or fashion houses.

Twelve commissions are accepted annually. Speaking to Something About Rocks, Leane described giving each piece room to develop outside the usual collection timetable. Some will remain private.

A silver collar for longtime collector Daphne Guinness took nine months to develop with a silversmith. Form and mechanism were resolved together, allowing the finished piece to follow her neck with apparent ease.

Its polished surface recalls Leane’s earlier body pieces, through a restrained line and a close relationship to the wearer.

Two rings from 2026 carry the atelier’s sculptural thinking into fine jewellery. Daffodil is recorded as platinum, citrine, and white and cognac diamonds. Curling, pointed forms suggest a flower around its yellow centre.

Barróg places a Kashmir sapphire and white diamonds within sweeping platinum lines. The setting gives each stone an expressive form, extending the design beyond its centre.

The first work associated with 12 was a headstone for Leane’s father, embellished with flora and fauna and accompanied by a bronze cat. A deeply personal commission opened an atelier whose work could take many forms.

Named I gcomhcheol—translated by the atelier as “In harmony”—the memorial is recorded in bronze, copper and slate. Birds and a cat bring familiar presences to the stone.

Leane now divides his time between North London and Kerry, where his father’s family is from. In an interview with AnOther, he described his involvement throughout the making process, extending to the boxes in which completed works are presented.

“My true passion actually is the process of making,” he told the magazine.

Each commission from 12 has a record of its own: numbered sketches, studies, material certificates and photographs. The decisions made at the bench stay close to the finished piece.

A ring, a collar and a memorial carry different private histories into Leane’s atelier. Their purposes differ; the time given to making connects them.