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PARIS, October 4, 2006 –
The
girl walked in and stood stock-still, dressed in a long, high-necked
corseted Victorian gown. Then her clothes began to twitch, move, and
reconfigure of their own accord. The mono-bosom top opened, the jacket
retreated, the hemline started to rise, and—finally, amazingly—there
she was, wearing a crystal-beaded flapper dress; a woman propelled
through fashion history from 1895 to the twenties in the space of a
minute. This was one of six incredible feats of technology and
conceptual commentary at the heart of Hussein Chalayan's show. The
others also moved through decades—one from the hourglass Dior New Look
to the Paco Rabanne metal-link shift.
Today's spectacle was one
of the increasingly rare occasions on which fashion still has the power
to astonish, provoke, and send a visceral sensation through its
audience. This was fashion addressing the subject of fashion, a
dissection of our contemporary habit of recycling "vintage," and an
embrace of high technology, all at the same time. It wasn't just the
uncanny sight of the self-undressing clothes (tech-genius courtesy of
the team who made the Hypogryph in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
that provided the chills. That would have left it at the level of
childlike entertainment. What really gave the show a disturbing sense
of wake-up-to-reality was the soundtrack. Here, the changing shapes
were connected to the sounds of the twentieth century—fragments of
music, trench warfare, the ranting of Hitler, aerial bombing, jet
engines, the beating of helicopter rotors.
– Sarah Mower
The
girl walked in and stood stock-still, dressed in a long, high-necked
corseted Victorian gown. Then her clothes began to twitch, move, and
reconfigure of their own accord. The mono-bosom top opened, the jacket
retreated, the hemline started to rise, and—finally, amazingly—there
she was, wearing a crystal-beaded flapper dress; a woman propelled
through fashion history from 1895 to the twenties in the space of a
minute. This was one of six incredible feats of technology and
conceptual commentary at the heart of Hussein Chalayan's show. The
others also moved through decades—one from the hourglass Dior New Look
to the Paco Rabanne metal-link shift.
Today's spectacle was one
of the increasingly rare occasions on which fashion still has the power
to astonish, provoke, and send a visceral sensation through its
audience. This was fashion addressing the subject of fashion, a
dissection of our contemporary habit of recycling "vintage," and an
embrace of high technology, all at the same time. It wasn't just the
uncanny sight of the self-undressing clothes (tech-genius courtesy of
the team who made the Hypogryph in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
that provided the chills. That would have left it at the level of
childlike entertainment. What really gave the show a disturbing sense
of wake-up-to-reality was the soundtrack. Here, the changing shapes
were connected to the sounds of the twentieth century—fragments of
music, trench warfare, the ranting of Hitler, aerial bombing, jet
engines, the beating of helicopter rotors.
– Sarah Mower
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