aSerpent bracelet 300dpi

Shaun Leane for SHOWstudio

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The latest edition of SHOWstudio’s gallery/shop SHOWcabinet, curated by jeweler extraordinaire Shaun Leane, is reminiscent of another cabinet of curiosities currently on display in London: Growth and Form, an early work by Richard Hamilton showing as part of his major retrospective in the Tate Modern.

The latter contains a skull and a spine of unidentified large animals, a few eggs, rocks and crystals, alongside manmade grid-based structures and photographs. Leane’s SHOWcabinet comprises a piece of barely crystallised raw emerald from a Zambian mine, a board of mounted tropical beetles, paper cut flowers under glass domes and a live snake, as well as sculptures and photographs by various artists including Damien Hirst; not to mention eight artifacts specially created for the exhibition by Leane himself: a 22 ct gold beetle brooch, a diamond bracelet inspired by a serpent’s spine, cuffs in the shape of cherry blossoms, Macaw feather earrings, and so on.

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Studio Visit: Aleksandr Manamis

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Last week we visited the showroom of Copenhagen-based brand Aleksandr Manamïs. We call it a ‘brand’ because we don’t know if Aleksandr Manamïs is a designer or just a name – they have done their best to remain anonymous, wishing their work to be the center of attention.

Since the start of the brand seven years ago, its development has been organic, with the size of the collections growing gradually. The F/W 2014 collection consists of little more than thirty pieces, and aims to provide a full wardrobe to the wearer. Manamïs’ collection is gender-neutral; for each piece, the cuts, for example through the recurring use of dropped shoulders and loose silhouettes that can be adjusted to the wearer’s body, are balanced to accommodate both male and female anatomies. The rest is taken care of through grading and sizing runs.