Made With 100% Real Alexander McQueen

We’ve seen beer made with starter yeast from someone’s beard, ice cream made with real human breast milk, and experiments in baking bread with vaginal yeast. But an Alexander McQueen handbag made with McQueen’s skin via harvested DNA?

This macabre project is actually going to happen. Tina Gorjanc, a student at Central Saint Martins where McQueen studied, is using the late designer’s DNA to grow skin to turn into leather accessories. Her fashion line Pure Human is described as the “intersection of luxury and biology.”

Gorjanc obtained McQueen’s DNA from labels on early McQueen designs that had a single lock of his hair sewn into plastic pockets. She then harvested the cells to grow into skin tissue. And because there isn’t a law on harvesting human genetic materials for commercial purposes, it’s considered fair use.

Although Gorjanc says that the point of creating a line that will include McQueen-infused leather jackets, backpacks, and purses is to prove a point about lax legislation around biological information, it would seem to be a better made point if it were an art piece rather than a commercial project.

Using bodily material for things you can either ingest or wear is an example of extreme Provenance, preserving and elevating history and heritage.