Hussein Chalayan

[Faust]

I wanted to dedicate this thread to work of Hussein Chalayan. In my mind I juggle Chalayan, Watanabe, and McQueen as the most creative womenswear designers from season to season, but I just have a soft spot for him. I don't know what it is exactly. I think it's his ability to actually manifest what he wanted to say into his clothes, instead of merely saying, "I was inspired by..."

This picture was one of his defining moments. It was from a fashion show (don't remember the season) that dealt with exile and evacuation. There were three chairs and a table on the runway. At the end of the show, the models walked out, took off the upholstery from the chairs that turned into dresses. The last model stepped in the middle of the table, which was transformed into this wooden skirt. Mind-bending.

[droogist]

The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1

Good thread, faust. ;)


Here's an interview with HC from late last year that I found interesting:

The Fabric of Life by Hussein Chalayan

HUSSEIN CHALAYAN, Kinship Journeys, autumn/winter collection 2003-2004.


The clothing of fashion designer/artist, HUSSEIN CHALAYAN has a life’s journey of its own – it’s born, it grows, it learns. It even gets married, but for Chalayan the wedding of fashion design and art has ended in divorce. sleek speaks with Chalayan about the life of his pieces, their relationship to the body and why he now wants to keep art and fashion separate.

SLEEK: Your career as a fashion designer was born with a funeral. For your degree show at St. Martins College you buried garments covered in iron filings underground, where they reacted with metal in a grave. Isn’t wearing a dress which has been buried and exhumed terribly morbid?

HC: Perhaps. However I buried the clothes in particular contexts, for that first time in connection with a story I invented. In it these magnetic dresses were made a mockery of by iron filings in a kind of performance, they were then kidnapped, killed and buried. I just wanted to illustrate the story: I even used excerpts from it on the labels in the clothes. Later I buried clothes in connection with a board game based on the Cartesian philosophy, that is about redemption and salvation, about jumping off heights to reach God, yet falling down and sinking into the mud. We also dipped them into mud, where they sank slowly and developed lives of their own. This is a great concern of mine, to give clothes a life of their own. After excavation they continue to live. They decompose, become rusty and thus receive an eternal life – which receives a new dimension on the body. However, the clothes I buried were never meant for wearing, although a few were washed and made wearable.

SLEEK: A recurring element of your work is expansion. Your clothes seem to have the urge to expand, to grow, to overcome borders. They seem to be moving away from the expected central focus of a fashion designer: the body.

HC: In some aspects. I am aware of the body, I am very body-conscious myself. However for me it is about creating a language. One can look at the body and not know whether the clothes that cover it can be termed a costume or folklore, as they lack a fixed dress code. This touches on a philosophical aspect of language, similar to Wittgenstein’s: We can only describe things we know; describing the unknown is difficult, as the words do not yet exist.

Many of my ideas are an extension of the body. As a student I spent most of my time drawing the body, I was obsessed with it. It is the ultimate cultural symbol, the ultimate centre of reference.

The way we build buildings or aeroplanes, the way the front of a car resembles a face, all that has to do with the extension and externalisation of the body. My Aeroplane Dress (1999) refers directly to this phenomenon. It is made out of fibreglass with different segments which can be deployed and moved like the wing flaps of an aeroplane. Consciously or unconsciously, we are always reflecting what we are made of.

SLEEK: And what about flesh, blood and bones?

HC: We are always striving to amplify ourselves. When we create robots to build cars in factories it is of course not comparable to human recreation, however it is a form of reproduction. Many people find it hard to adopt a child, because they want to leave a mark, which re-projects and echoes them. We always strive for things which are close to reality, i.e. are real, but also have their limits.

SLEEK: And how do you deal with the limits of creation and the idea of expansion?

HC: I often use mutually dependent elements, for example negative body forms, or clothes with magnetic buttons, which communicate with each other, attract each other, thus creating their own form, or I use elements from my animations in my designs. My way of thinking is very cinematic, I think in moving pictures. Movement needs volume – I need volume for my designs. That is why I often work with hybrid structures, which reflect existing forms as well as creating new ones and which literally expand into the space. I refer to space in a more abstract sense, by reflecting how body and clothes are perceived culturally. My idea of expansion is multi-faceted.

SLEEK: Your film Place to Passage (2003) isn’t about expansion, instead it is about seclusion and isolation. A woman embarks on an imaginary journey through manifold landscapes in a cocoon-like vessel. Body and mode of transport form a microcosm, which exists completely independently from the outside world.

HC: It is about the idea of achieving a maximum degree of mobility by taking your environment with you. The vessel nurtures the passenger, feeds, clothes and transports it. Today we travel so much, are on the move all the time, creating temporary residences for ourselves. We are constantly displaced. This causes an increase of isolation and solitude, as do technological developments and modes of communication. Place to Passage illustrates a possible scenario, it doesn’t pose a realistic suggestion. The vessel is a nurturing and isolating element all in one, similar to a piece of clothing. Just because one cannot walk around in it like a dress doesn’t mean that it is not a dress. In the film the woman travels to the Bosphorus, because Istanbul is my favourite city – however Berlin is also on my list now. The Bosphorus has a very feminine energy, Istanbul, this symbolic rift between two continents, is very feminine to me, like a woman who has many admirers – not like a man who has many women.

SLEEK: You seem to rate solitude positively, viewing the way we are permanently moving away from each other as a natural development?

HC: Yes, I find it generally positive, although one must differentiate between solitude and isolation. Solitude is something one can choose freely, for inner contemplation, which gives us space to develop our thoughts.

SLEEK: Yes. However shouldn’t thoughts develop in connection with the outside world? As a designer you are dependent on your environment. Do you believe that the growing individualisation has led to an increasing loss of group identity and of cultural assets? The less one is dependent on one’s environment, the less one can have an effect on it and the less one can develop within it.

HC: Certainly, loneliness does not have an absolute function. Human beings exist in a world of mutual dependency, we cannot pretend to exist autonomously. Of course we are born alone and we die alone, but in between we are dependent. The idea of morphing, which I presented in Geotropics (1999) and Ambimorphous (2002), is also based on different ethnic sources. And as an artist I don’t just need someone to frame my pictures, but also something to act as a source for my work.

SLEEK: In your collection Kinship Journeys (2003) you present three sculptural elements on the catwalk: a trampoline, a confessional and a »coffin-boat«. Were these elements from Christian iconography meant as a critique of religion?

HC: Yes, of course. I wanted to return to the idea of being close to God, of striving to become one with God, and to demonstrate the failure of this quest. The model on the trampoline was wearing clothes to which balloons were attached. Whilst she was vainly striving for godly heights, a digital clock on the ceiling, a symbol for divine power, echoed the ticking away of her time. The confessional transforms sin into something beautiful: For every sin confessed a seed was sown from which a flower grew. The sin, the Catholic idea of sin overshadowing Christian life, became meaningless that way. The coffin-boat carries the idea of diminishing our fear of death and extending life, as the boats floats on the ocean, drifting to infinity. The clothes extend in reaction to these »monuments« – with their bio-morphic elements or in the skirts that become inflatable lifejackets.

SLEEK: What kind of reactions to shows such as Kinship Journeys or to your Between (1998) collection do you encounter? In Between you shroud initially naked models in chador pieces step by step – referencing religious impositions. Isn’t it easy to be provocative when dealing with religious topics?

HC: I myself was very happy with Kinship Journeys – which was bought by the Centraal Museum Utrecht. However the show went right over the heads of people in the fashion business. Afterwards I decided to leave out sculptural elements from further shows and in future to draw a line between fashion and art. Although this doesn’t mean that fashion shows will no longer have conceptual contexts. But people in fashion just want to see clothes. And now when I read the reviews of my shows I realise that the reactions have become more positive. People find the additional contextual elements interesting, sometimes they are even enthusiastic – as in Afterwords (2000) where the table morphs to become a skirt –, but they don’t understand them. Although I ask myself about the different levels of appreciation: Is it enough to like something in order to truly appreciate it or must one understand and respect it?

[droogist]

The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 2

SLEEK: How about your appreciation of femininity – you don’t
dress women in a particularly sexy fashion, at least that was quite
obvious in your early work, you gave them less of a feminine and
sometimes a rather comical aspect.

HC: Initially my main focus was the form itself. The garment with which
I was covering the body was much more important than how the woman
would like to show herself. In the beginning I was primarily concerned
with creating a method of working for myself, getting to know my tools.
It is difficult to create one’s own style initially. It seems as though
everything has already been done before. In the beginning I
concentrated on forms, on tailoring the garments; for example I tried
to cut dresses in one piece. I find that my girls looked like librarians, they looked quite boyish, however taste changes. I didn’t use to find women in high heels
particularly powerful, now I do. I have always focused on women. I
started in menswear in 2002, because I received so much interest from
men, who wanted my pieces for themselves. But to be honest I do not
like it when men wear too much designer clothing.

SLEEK:
You are now very well-known in the art world. Did your participation at
the Venice Biennale play an important role in this?

HC: No,
it developed over the years, not over night. But I have only recently
been given the opportunity to do solo exhibitions – such as my current
exhibition in the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, which was shown in the
Groninger Museum before – and not to show just my fashion-related work,
but also my films and installations. To me the films are a natural
development – as I said before I think in terms of movement, and
choreographing a show is similar to making a film. That is why the
duality of fashion and art is so ideal for me. I still love working in
fashion and I love the shows, but I need both, especially as they
inspire each other so wonderfully.

SLEEK: The characters in your films also seem quite ambiguous, very androgynous, such as Tilda Swinton, who plays in your film The Absent Presence (2005) for the Venice Biennale.


HC: That is why Tilda Swinton is the perfect character for The Absent Presence, because she looks so androgenous and also Aryan, which is important, as the film is about questions of identity. In it research is carried out on traces of human DNA in the clinical laboratory of an institute. Generally I find ambivalence fascinating. I am interested in the in-between, the realm between fantasy and reality; that’s what my work is about.

SLEEK: Such as in your Ventriloquy (2001) collection, where the abstraction of an animated film becomes reality on the catwalk.

HC: Exactly, it was about dissolving the boundaries between fantasy and reality. With the animation we created a virtual setting, in which the girls moved as if on a real stage. The garments in the animation were also part of the real show, and they were destroyed on the stage, as they were in the film. The real clothes are an alter ego for the virtual clothes, similar to a ventriloquist who is two beings in one. The real clothes then destroy their virtual twins. On a more abstract level it is about how values disappear completely in times of war and catastrophes.

Making the skirts from sugar glass was a more difficult problem. If one of the models touched the wall only slightly, the whole skirt would shatter. I don’t really know what I was thinking there.

SLEEK: Despite the element of destruction you use poppy seeds as a symbol for life in Ventriloquy, which is typical for your work. It is full of illustrations of life in a very positive sense – your urge for growth is very life-affirming.

HC: I certainly have a passion for life. My clothes have a life, and the ideas from which I develop them have a life of their own too. I learn a lot through my work, as well as through the people I meet. My work allows me to be open to new and different perspectives; at the same time it is investigative. There is so much I don’t understand, so many things which have many perspectives, so my work is also a lifelong learning process.

Source: http://www.sleekmag.com/sitemap/is_0...ayan/home.html

[dontbecruel]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1

It's a shame that his menswear is so sexless and anaemic.

[Faust]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1



Thanks, droogist! That's quite an interesting article. He is a very smart man. I like that.

Dontbecruel, I remember droogist mentioning that HC never imagined a man in designer clothes... which is a little strange, naturally one would question his making menswear in the first place. I think his first menswear collections were pretty incredible, actually, especially the one where he imagined the clothes coming by mail in packages as gifts. Really beautiful. The last two seasons haven't done much for me, unfortunately, although some amazing details always stand out.

[dontbecruel]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1



So do you thinkChalayan considers his menswear line to be more utlitarian than hiswomen's clothes?It's much too expensive for that!

I'm afraid I don't know enough about previous collections to comment. I think what I find disappointing in the last two or three collections at least is that he is so unambitious. Everything looks like sportswear/workwear with a twist. And a pretty minor twist at that. I think exactly the same about Junya, who also makes dreamy, beautiful women's clothes.

[Faust]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1

[quote user="dontbecruel"]

So do you thinkChalayan considers his menswear line to be more utlitarian than hiswomen's clothes?It's much too expensive for that!

I'm afraid I don't know enough about previous collections to comment. I think what I find disappointing in the last two or three collections at least is that he is so unambitious. Everything looks like sportswear/workwear with a twist. And a pretty minor twist at that. I think exactly the same about Junya, who also makes dreamy, beautiful women's clothes.

[/quote]

I think so. Droogist might shed some light on this. I agree about the last few seasons, uninspiring and VERY expensive. There was some stuff left at Bloomingdales at 75% off, and I found nothing appealing enough, although I really wanted to.

Re: Junya. I agree, but that has been his goal and aesthetic for the menswear - all about utility and reinventing the classics. It's all there on that huge blue label that comes on his clothes. Some of it is really intricately created with a lot of handwork - hence the price (but I wouldn't buy that Lacoste poloshirt for $500 regardless).

[dontbecruel]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1



Absolutely! I can't see the point in wasting so many hours of some poor seamstress's time cutting up a whole load of lacoste shirts and sewing them back together. Or, in the case of Chalayan, sewing a shirt inside a cardigan so it looks exactly like you are wearing a shirt and cardigan from Marks and Spencer. Who are these clothes for? I fear they are mostly soldto people who want them BECAUSE they are expensive.

[xcoldricex]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1



does anyone happen to have video of what the first post is describing? (the chair and table presentation.. sounds amazing!)

i really do like chalayan, i find his garments have small details that make it unique and a bit quirky. however, i agree with dontbecruel- some of the stuff is just like why? for example a dress shirt sewn into a blazer- so it looks like you're wearing a dress shirt and a blazer... except you can't take the blazer off... hmmm.

[droogist]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1



[quote user="xcoldricex"]does anyone happen to have video of what the first post is describing? (the chair and table presentation.. sounds amazing!)[/quote]You can watch a "digest" video of the runway show here, it's about a minute long: http://www.7x11.nl/chalayan.html. It's nothing like seeing the real thing, but at least it gives you an idea.

Is HC's menswear really that expensive? I find that surprising, because imo his womenswear is actually quite reasonably priced (relatively speaking, of course). To give an example, this past spring/summer he had this incredible black dress whose entire front was encrusted with tiny assorted hand-sewn metal applications. I flipped over the tag fully expecting to see 4 figures staring back at me, but no: the full retail price was about 780 euros. Not pocket change to be sure, but if a house like Balenciaga had made something similar they probably would have charged a good 2k for it.

[rach2jlc]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1



I've owned a number of Chalayan menswear garments (luckily all at 70% off or more), and while the quality is top notch (produced by Gibo), the designs were so regular and the cut so unflattering that I really couldn't justify them even at that price.I had a few pieces from a/w 04 and then s/s 05 and ended up reselling them just because there was nothing very special about them. Strangely enough, though, they had this nonsensical philosophical treatise printed on the inside tag about identity or nationalism or something, as though there was some incredible message hidden in the regularity of the clothes. Unfortunately, it seemed to me like HC was overreaching; there are brilliant clothes and then there are clothes that want desperately to be brilliant with a lot of conceptual fluff.

Anyway,I bought two cottonpullovers that were originally almost $500, marked down to $140 and a button-front shirt that was $425 marked down to $100. Again, the materials and the sewing were great, but the earlier mention of "Marks and Spencer" were right on; for cut, style, etc. it looked like I was wearing Gap or Banana Republic. The Utilitarian aspect didn't work well, for many of the other designers that do this aesthetic very well also add some innovation in cut or styling to make it unique (even Marc Jacobs, King of Gap-esque overpriced clothes, tweaks the cut of his carpenter pants and jeans to make your ass look great).In HC, I just looked regular and frumpy but was wearing a $500 pullover.

[Faust]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1

It is rather strange. I own one Chalayan piece, and it's
incredible. On the outside it looks almost like a members only
jacket, but on the inside it's one of the most intricate pieces I've
seen - the lining is multilayered and open, with a parachute like
harness inside. I feel like I am carrying a secret when I wear
it. The last few seasons though I haven't seen anything like
that. Last season the polo shirts were $350 and the unlined
cotton blazers that didn't have much going on were around $900.
His womenswear is untouchable though[Y]

[dontbecruel]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1

rach2jlc, your experience sounds just like mine. I have a Chalayan polo shirt and a pair of jeans, both of which I bought when they were 70% off, wanting badly to love them. The cuts are dumpy. I don't know if they are designed to try and flatter short fat people, or cut to make you feel short and fat, but either way it's not good. I've tried shrinking the polo shirt in the wash to create a new shape, any shape, but it's still crap. And like you say, basic with a twist, if you really need it, is done much better by other less pretentious designers (Paul Smith and the like).

[Faust]

Re: The Fabric of Life - Sleek Magazine interview w/Hussein Chalayan, Pt. 1

Hmm, I have had that experience with only a few pieces. Many
others are cut well. Anyway, I wanted to post a few pictures of
the stuff I loved.

This
shirt is also cool, from SS03, I believe. Note the
strips of paper sewn in,upclose they say "par avion" and such. It
was part of the collection I mentioned where the idea is you get your
clothes by mail as a gift.

[susie_bubble]

Re: Hussein Chalayan

Right...I hope to be a healthy contributor on this forum so I'd thought I'd start off here!Just wanted to say that I'm a big fan of Hussein Chalayan's diffusion line for wearability and affordability too! The new Chalayan collection just arrived in Selfridges and I really want it all.....There's an exhibition in LA at the moment that is supposed to compare Chalayan's work (and other designers..) with that of architects - the processes of construction and foundations. I can definitely see the way Chalayan connects the two fields - fashion and architecture.