Commercialising... Chalayan

[softgrey]

that could be true space...it will be interesting to see what the difference is...

 

[faust]

These are Japanese prices, and European goods are usually more in Japan than America, to my understanding, so the American prices may be less.

Any ways the line looks great so far.

Not anymore Space. The $ has been taking a major hit against the euro, while the yen has remained relatively unharmed.

 

[brian]

cotton canvas bag

gimme gimme!

 

[faust]

Ok, I just saw this stuff in person. I personally love it. It's deceptively simple, light, airy, romantic - in other words everything Hussein wanted it to be. The prices are not cheap, and not expensive, but definitely higher than stated in the beginning of this thread.

 

[softgrey]

so...the prices are way lower than i thought they'd be...and i think they are lower here than in japan...

the jacket is $395
pants about $185
the little dress about $250

quite cute really...a beautiful sheer cotton...but i'm not very fond of his endangered species print really...

saw it at both via bus stop and opening ceremonie...

 

[brian]

^ did you make any purchases? and btw, do you know if they had the canvas tote??

 

[softgrey]

they might have the tote brian...the accessories were scattered around and it was hard to really remember them because they were rather ugly to look at and i didn't want to look too long...but i remember some printed totes...it's possible...

sorry i can't be sure...

no purchases...big sweaters and boots aren't conducive to trying on clothing...plus i figure i'll wait to see what else they get since they said there is so much more to come...was only really tempted by one thing....
a hussein chalayan mainline top...grey/blk knit...double layered and draped front...they had it in about 4 different fabrics and colours...tons of chalayan really...at via bus stop

 

[AlexN]

Extinct species hat and bag up at www.aloharag.com.

 

[bikkle]

so far, only seen the line at selfridges and shop. the cotton jersey stuff doesn't look very impressive but i'm looking forward to the shirts and jackets...

 

[brian]

i don't like the selection at aloharag

i hope they get more in soon

 

[helena]

I noted at the w/e that Urban Outfitters is now stocking Chalayan...... I didn't really like it so much (for me) but it was generally a lot more interesting than UO stock.

 

[droogist]

^ Erm...I'm assuming that Urban Outfitters in GB is a different animal that Urban Outfitters in the US...?

 

[cigaretiquette]

Wish those would be sold in Sweden
geee

 

[softgrey]

^ Erm...I'm assuming that Urban Outfitters in GB is a different animal that Urban Outfitters in the US...?

yes...i've heard that it is quite different in europe...
same company though...

 

[droogist]

Thanks, softgrey. :wipes sweat from brow: I've never seen an Urban here in Europe, maybe they're only in the UK...am very curious now...

 

[travolta]

when chalayan speaks of extinct animal prints and tying this clothing to archeology i automatically thought of clothing for children...and children's clothes can be recycled a lot faster than other clothes-my sister's hobby and alternate source of income is buying and selling on ebay...and then if you think of mothers investing the time in searching and swapping clothing like garage saleing, knitting circles and stamp parties--and now she's big into archiving...its a huge trend...she spends loads of money on it...now mothers-young mothers are in a romantic state to begin with-the perfect demographic--he may be onto something...i think this whole idea chalayan has isn't so lofty after all...

 

[travolta]

btw...i think his clothes are nice..i like the tank dress that was mentioned and the black short sleeve...

 

[faust]

I just saw more of it in person at the Opening Ceremony. I liked it. Almost walked away with a piece...

 

[helena]

Thanks, softgrey. :wipes sweat from brow: I've never seen an Urban here in Europe, maybe they're only in the UK...am very curious now...

yes i think its just the UK droogist. they have a small selection of Chalayan, Frostfrench, Vanessa Bruno, Rykiel, day Birger and erotokritos. There were some chalayan jacksts & a big brown windcoat thingy. It wasn't so much the styles than the colour that I didn't like.

He seems to be commercialising away just fine. I also saw some nice stuff in Galeries Lafayette in Paris

 

[travolta]

words: Marcus Fairs

Hussein Chalayan apologises sheepishly for being late, but it's nothing really, just five or ten minutes. He goes into the kitchen of his large white studio near Old Street, East London, and puts the kettle on to make tea. English breakfast tea. Beyond the reception area there are rails of clothes and sewing machines and cutting tables, and on the window sill is a large, formless package of black plastic with a hand-written note Sellotaped on top: "Be Careful! Dress/object under it!"

You expect Chalayan, 33, to be an exotic character, with his wonderful name and Turkish-Cypriot roots and his reputation as the weird genius of British fashion. But instead he's small, quiet and dressed in really ordinary clothes. He's perfectly polite and attentive but he jiggles his leg in a way that suggests he feels slightly uncomfortable and would rather be doing something else.

Chalayan is the designer who pushes clothes to the point where they become sculpture, furniture or even architecture. While most fashion design seems to be obsessed with glamour, Chalayan's work is conceptual and political. "He's pushing boundaries where others aren't," says Lauren Goldstein, fashion editor on Time magazine. "He's more about substance than style, design rather than glamour."

"He's very much selling himself on the idea of a higher intelligence behind the clothes," says another designer of Chalayan. "He's in his own world, and you really have to get into his world to get into his work."

Chalayan is inspired by architectural theories, science and technology. He famously produced a collection that included chairs and tables that became garments. Now, with his latest project, he has designed a car.

Well, sort of. This year, Chalayan was awarded the Tribe Art Commission, the second in an annual art project sponsored by the BAR Honda Formula One racing team (last year it went to the artist Julian Opie). He has just completed the work, a short film called Place to Passage in which an androgynous figure makes a journey from London to Istanbul in a conceptual pod-like vehicle that hovers just above the ground. The purpose of the commission is for the artist to create a piece of work based on Formula One racing, but Chalayan has instead created a highly atmospheric piece that explores the alienating nature of travel: cocooned in her sterile pod, the passenger struggles to carry out everyday functions such as eating and sleeping while the pod - or "vessel" as Chalayan calls it - speeds across inhospitable landscapes before flying up the Bosphorus and docking in an underground car park.

Chalayan visited BAR Honda's factory in the run up to the project, and F1 technology is used to create the moulded fibreglass pod. But it's not so much a vehicle as a conceptual exploration of velocity and entombment. "I didn't want it to be a car; I wanted it to be more of a floating mechanism," says Chalayan. "What inspired me was the way our lives are in a constant state of mobility, and how, in some ways, that could affect memory, could affect our attachment to domestic things. What would new comfort zones be in those kinds of situations? You know, it's this whole idea of creating a refuge wherever you are. It's quite abstract, in a way it's a bit like meditating on solitude, maybe a bit about nostalgia, how we reminisce, creating a place within a cavity, all these kinds of ideas."

Memory, alienation and transience are recurring themes in the work of Chalayan, who was born in Nicosia, Cyprus and later came to London to study, graduating from Central St Martins College of Art & Design in 1993. A contemporary of his student days says: "He was always the nerd in the parka who didn't speak to anyone." He launched his own label the following year. His technical skills - the structure and stitching of his clothes - are regarded as exceptional, but he says he is more interested in the ideas behind his work than the completed items. "I'm really an ideas person and ultimately I like to do what serves the idea best. I'm interested in process, because process in itself is a piece of work. I need to do more in-depth development to get to the final product. I find that the things in research during the process enrich me. Most fashion designers are preoccupied by the final result; I'm more interested in what's led to it."

It is often said that Chalayan's work is influenced by architecture, and he has lectured at the Architectural Association and other establishments, but buildings don't seem to interest him; in fact, you could interpret much of his fashion as being about an alternative to architecture, protecting the wearer from a hostile environment with a plethora of pods, helmets and cocooning forms.

"I was going to study architecture, I was interested in it, but I really wanted to work much more directly with the body," he says. "I'm not always interested in architecture, but I'm interested in the theories behind it: place, non-place, public space. There aren't many architects that I love. I don't think there are that many amazing buildings that have been built in the world. You could count them really easily." When in Tokyo recently, he visited Herzog & de Meuron's new Prada building; he says he loved the building, but is more enthusiastic about the luxuriant clothes rails, which are covered in fur. "What I really liked was the juxtaposition of the super space-age building and the retro, fur-covered rails. I loved that contrast."

His latest menswear collection, Place/non-place, explores the way that clothes cause people to interact, and thereby create meaningful places. Chalayan walks over to a table and picks up a black cotton jacket from the collection. The inside of the garment features dozens of pockets. "All the clothes have compartments in them. The whole idea is you collect your memories with you; you've collected stuff [in the pockets] that you can talk about." The clothes are the catalyst for a performance that he intends to carry out next May in a specially created space at Heathrow. "Place/non-place is about how you can create an event through clothes at an airport," he explains. "The idea is that the clothes have led you to the space. It's about how an industrially produced garment acquires meaning through use. It's giving life to a garment."

In other words, it is the way that the clothes encourage interaction between the wearers that creates the sense of place, rather than the architecture of the space. "I can't say that it's architectural, but it relates to space. It creates an interplay between event and place; the clothes become a catalyst to create experiences at an event. I'm questioning whether if you have an event in a space, does that turn it into a place?"

Given that clothes are inanimate until they are worn, all fashion designers need to exploit the biannual performances that are the catwalk shows to gain attention for their couture collections, which in turn are marketing devices for the ready-to-wear ranges. Yet Chalayan has gone further than any other designer to turn his runway shows into events that are poetic and meaningful, as well as spectacular. His graduate collection featured silk clothes that had been covered in iron filings, buried and then exhumed; his autumn/winter show in 2000 featured models in sugar glass clothes who, using hammers, undressed each other by smashing the outfits. Other shows have revealed a social conscience notably absent elsewhere in the fashion industry: he produced a range of dresses based on the traditional Islamic chador with veils of varying length, as a comment on the treatment of women in Muslim societies.

Other pieces display technical virtuosity, such as his paper Airmail dress, which arrives as a letter and folds out to become a full-length frock. He experiments with hi-tech materials, producing garments that change shape according to temperature or contain remote-controlled motors.

But it was his Living Room collection, presented at Sadler's Wells theatre in London in spring 2000, that sealed his reputation. The stage was set with a range of tables and chairs that transformed into clothing (armchair covers became dresses; a round table became a skirt). The models serenely picked up the furniture, put them on and walked off. Fashion writers described it as the most beautiful show they had ever seen, and Chalayan was named Designer of the Year for the second year running.

"The project had nothing to do with furniture," he says. "It was all about the moment of trying to leave your home at a time of war. The living room was supposed to be like somebody's wardrobe. How you could hide your possessions and carry them with you? Partly it's from my background - I'm from Cyprus, which is a divided place - and partly because of Kosovo."

In recent years, the worlds of fashion, architecture and design have started to overlap, with fashion houses producing homeware ranges and commissioning stores from headline architects. Yet Chalayan suggests that this process is somewhat superficial. "A lot of fashion people probably buy into that idea of having an architectural space without understanding space. Architecture and fashion are interrelated; they're about covering the body. But most fashion people aren't that interested in architecture."

Chalayan will get the chance to merge the two disciplines in March, when his first shop opens in Daikanyama, Tokyo. He has commissioned Block Architects to design the space. The design isn't complete yet, but Chalayan says enigmatically: "There's definitely going to be a meeting of worlds between architecture and fashion in Tokyo: I'm really opinionated about space and form. I want it to be quite understated: simple, bare and stripped down. We don't have a big budget. I don't want it to look like a space ship."
http://www.icon-magazine.co.uk/issues/december/hussein.htm