Hussein Chalayan

[Faust]

I agree that the last few collections don't have that oomph, or maybe something has changed either with him or with the zeitgeist, but something is definitely off.

In addition to the ones you mentioned, just to see what amazing things Iris van Herpen is doing in the same realm is breathtaking.

[Shucks]

been meaning to post about his new job at vionnet - not sure it has been mentioned already? if so, feel free to delete.

from www.vogue.com



“For me the choice was obvious—there was only one name on the list!” says Goga Ashkenazi, chairman and creative director of Vionnet, describing her decision to bring on British designer Hussein Chalayan to create the house’s demi-couture line.

Well, it might have been obvious to Ashkenazi, but it was a bit of a surprise to others in the fashion community—on the face of it, what did Chalayan, a master of avant-garde flourishes, have in common with the classicism of a house like Vionnet? Then again, doesn’t fashion thrive on such charming incongruity? In any case, Ashkenazi shoos away any skepticism: “Hussein represents what Vionnet stands for,” she insists. “He is an artist—approaching it in an interesting, unconventional way.”

At a preview the day before the runway show, Chalayan is forthcoming about the challenge. “Vionnet is part of the air, such an institution—the handkerchiefing, the bias, the plissé! How could I reinvent these ideas?”

The answer, it seems, began with cables, and not the kind that decorate cashmere pullovers. He directs attention to photographs of wires, shelves, and staircases, and says that industrial design is at the core of his ideas for the house: “I was thinking, how could I give it an angle? I wanted to do shelving made of fabric, but then melted down and folded. I was interested in 3-D shapes and how they would affect the way a woman moves.”

The next evening at the show, the decor includes rusty road signs and scaffolding—a stark contrast to the elegant gazar frocks in rosy beige, the same color as the flesh of the models who open the show. But what’s this? Closer examination of the ensembles as they emerge include cable-wire-inspired decorations belting dresses, and a pattern of dots that could be a highly evolved descendant of an electrical board, and a dress whose intricately cut bodice does indeed, on second glance, appear to evoke shelves. Chalayan is completely at home with these seemingly arcane touches: “The woman who wears my things,” he says with confidence, “will like these too.”

[SHYE_POSER]

I really don't know what has happened at all. Maybe he feels he said all he needed within certain mediums. Fuck knows! I miss Fashions showmen, the collections would bring a smile to my face like no other.
Yes, there is Thom, but were are the next generations Margiela/Chalayhan/McQueen/Galliano.

The work Iris is doing with 3-D printing is nothing short of amazing.
I feel we will see 3-D printing utilised a lot more over the next few years (once the technology becomes more affordable, which it currently is).

The whole 3-D printing thing fascinates me. What's interesting is how companies (big conglomerates etc) deal with the ease of which products can be copied (sunglasses, etc).

Went slightly off topic, as usual!

[1994]

Ambimorphus FW02

I would include Ambimorphus and After Words to be in a line-up of the most important fashion presentations ever. His garments have always displayed a sense of have lived something, being remnants, and part of a larger story.

And I worry that Hussein Chalayan will never have the substantial financial support necessary to continue holding ground-breaking shows like these.

[MJRH]

Architecture × fashion crossover post!

"Krutikov was fascinated by movement and flexibility. Departing from the rigid forms dominating the architecture of the time, his city would incorporate living, plastic structures capable of changing qualitatively and quantitatively in accordance with changes in the environment itself. The goal of Krutikov’s work was to prove the theoretical possibility and preferability of mobile architecture." Charnel House





It parallels Chalayan so well, flight and movement built into a normally rigid medium (moreso even than clothing), transcending boundaries, then liberation... nomadism at a metropolitan scale!—heady thought. Krutikov was working in Russia in the 20s, so presumably he had some trauma to fly away from, as well.


Kinship Journeys, AW 03


Geotropics, SS 99

More flightiness over at Cabinet

[Faust]

Fantastic and sad interview with this great man.

http://vestoj.com/conversations-on-slowness-3/

"We’re suffering from a design overdose right now. Being a designer has become fashionable. I don’t know any other business where a rich man’s wife can employ a team to work for her and declare that she’s a designer with no prior training."

" Fashion attracts a lot of really insecure people. A lot of people in the industry suffer from what I call ‘BBD’ – Bigger Better Deal. You know when you’re at a party, talking to someone and they’re looking over your shoulder to see if there is someone else more important around the corner? I’ve met a lot of people like that, people whose eyes are constantly wandering."

[Law]

"We’re suffering from a design overdose right now. Being a designer has become fashionable. I don’t know any other business where a rich man’s wife can employ a team to work for her and declare that she’s a designer with no prior training."

***cough*** Victoria Beckham ***cough***.

[Faust]

And a hundred like her.

[zamb]

I read the entire Article and he is correct
he is saying exactly the same things i have been saying for YEARS now.

too many fashion schools
too many fashion companies
too many wanna bees who have no talent but tons of money


Also its always fun to see those people who talk to you until another person they think more important comes along..........

[Ahimsa]

Fantastic and sad interview with this great man.

http://vestoj.com/conversations-on-slowness-3/

"We’re suffering from a design overdose right now. Being a designer has become fashionable. I don’t know any other business where a rich man’s wife can employ a team to work for her and declare that she’s a designer with no prior training."

I know this all too well. NYC is rife with this kind of "designer".

[Faust]

I know you do, Ahimsa :-)

[StyleUp]

Pretty old started thread but being a fan of Hussein Chalyan I would love to make my presence feel.

Thank you Faust for starting this thread.

[fredokin]

Wallowing in self pity bc I probably won't it back to NY in time to see the dresses in the Manus x Machina exhibit

Anyways, here are a few of Chalayan's short films. If anyone knows where to find Temporal Mediations lmk...

Place to Passage - 2004


Anesthetics - 2004


Absent Presence - 2005

[falkenauge]

Hi guys,

Not sure if anyone knew this but Hussein made a few rugs together with the Swiss carpet manufactory Ruckstuhl. He tried to reimagine the carpet and show it's story coming from the silk road.


"Approaching"


"Time Spanning"


"On its way"


I find them pretty interesting as I saw them in person. More high-quality pictures can be found here: http://insight.ruckstuhl.com/edition...n-chalayan-de/

[MetroBulotDodo]

Quick thoughts on Chalayan, I feel that he is, undoubtedly, one of the designers about whom more critical theory and visual studies should be focusing their lens on.

His garments have potentially much to reveal about the state of design in the Age of the Anthropocene, connectedness, technology, culture and their mutual relations to design. More so than most designers, his work seems to reveal the most about his theories of design and design strategies when particular garments are grouped into sets with formal qualities and their variations compared across seasons. Case in point, examples from SS 2002, AW 2002, SS 2003, AW 2003 of zipped bomber jackets demonstrate how knit panels and zippers/points of closure can be incorporated into multi-layered garments to form multifarious variations within variations while still projecting a particularly strong individual design ideology and strengthening the link of a designer with formalistic design elements creating a perspective that can only be ascribed to Chalayan.

Using examples from my archive, take a look at #57 Jacket from AW 02 Ambimorpous, #46 Jacket from AW 2002 Ambimorphous, #53 Bomber from Ambimorphous, #59 Bomber from Kinship Journeys, #51 Bomber from Kinship Journeys, #50 Bomber from Kinship Journeys in the order I've laid out. Even if one is unable to articulate, specifically, the connection, I guarantee the brain is registering important lessons concerning how a design maintains the robustness of his vision, while still managing to evolve innovate -- skills I think are sadly in short supply.

The same thing can be done, with similarly striking revelations, when creating sets of skirts, shift dresses and denim by Hussein Chalayan. I think these lessons could be especially helpful to illustrate to design students how to achieve skills I noted in the preceding paragraph that are critical to allowing a design to make an impact in design (even if he's struggled financially in order to maintain that integrity while designing under his own name. I can't judge his decision to work for Puma. I can only wish that the arts were sufficiently funded so that talented designers may focus on developing his or her craft.)

Teaching students how to effectively achieve this seems especially crucial when so many designers seem unable to present a unique design perspective. Perhaps we're in the midst of a moment when a surplus genuine talent is missing from the field, but so much of what is produced seem to be done so within seasonal, fashion echo chambers. (I do not read current high volume-produced fashion magazines as I believe that it can only taint my eye.) What we see in fashion at the moment are the negative effects of the fashion echo chamber, in conjunction with the lack of sufficient funding from sources that can relieve the profit imperative (more should be coming from the private arts sector!, or federal grants (snort)). Those effects, along with the pressures of production and profit have colluded to cause me great dismay and have for some time now.

MBD