On several occasions the jewellery designer Shaun Leane was commissioned directly by McQueen to make special one-off pieces for his shows. One of them is a rather haunting looking aluminium jaw, shining as if it was made from silver. Apparently Shaun Leane used himself as a model to make this, as well as many other of his artworks. A thought which comes to mind is the innovative sixteenth-century goldsmith, Wenzel Jamnitzer from Nuremberg who developed a so-called life casting technique where he cast living bugs, insects and flowers into delicate and intricate decorative elements that quickly became sought after by the collectors. Similarly – and also during the sixteenth century – Bernard Palissy made comparable experiments in his workshops at the Tuilerie Gardens in Paris, but he used ceramics where he made life casts of crayfish, snakes and lizards. This technique of life casting could also have been used for the bird claw that decorated the bag in McQueen’s 2007 collection.