Hussein Chalayan - archives collections and general information

[Scott]

^you know i cannot remember if it was ever even said,at least of the assesments i saw. i do remember vogue in 98 doing a feature on the rising avant garde--all about raw materials i think it was about. like junya when he used the circular wire to wrap the body with origami military fabrics. hussein was part of this story as well...it could have been some sort of wire material.

 

[zack17]

i love Hussein Chalayan
he's a genius. so talented and creative

 

[MulletProof]

Wonderful thread, Berlin! . It feels nice to see his work all piled together and being able to see such clear consistency in his creations and the amount of thought and individuality of each collection.

Scott, are you talking about this article?. It was featured in Harper's Bazaar July 1998 under the name of 'Two on the verge' (the other one being Veronique Branquinho).


[sorry about the quality, I make the worst scans around here ]

They also included his F/W 98 deep-red dress in a story of the same issue..

[catwalking]

THE SENSUAL SEASON
Photographed by Patrick Demarchelier
Model: Erin O'Connor
scanned by me.

 

[droogist]

many sharp pieces here
this one caught my eye
--anyone know what it is?
a wire? floating outward at the back
sturdy yet looks supple

Those are strands of beads.

 

[JuiceMajor]

So unfair talent like him not getting enough attention from the press...great thread!

 

[Scott]

mullet,it wasn't that one...i do remember that one as well....but vogue had done a feature on few of the smaller avant garde comparing their work to works of art(started to come back to me last night)....the one with the junya was when the models were all queued side by side with locked arms,all in white shirts and felt wrappings of military fabric coiled in wire. susan cianciolo was also in this...with her white terry cloth skirt on shalom harlow. i wish i still had it as i would scan and post it. i dunno why i didn't keep it as i keep most clippings.

anyway,the mystery is solved as i would trust the biggest chalayan fan....droogist

 

[kiddokiddo]

Thank you for posting.....It reminds me of the days he used to leave me speechless, as I was studying fashion

 

[droogist]

www.husseinchalayan.com now has photos and video of all of his collections. (Plus a nice overview of his artwork, which isn't predictable and half-***ed like most fashion designers' artwork. )

 

[LetThemEatCake]

Fabulous thread, Berlin! I love Chalayan's old shows from 1998/99. The one show where the dress was smashed to broken bits still lingers in my subconscious...and he always used the most interesting models, like Kirsten Pieters, and Audrey Tchekova, and of course Natalia Semanova, Erin O'Connor, Shalom Harlow...Ahhhhh!! Thanks so much for posting all the pics! Going to go check out the website now...

 

[gius]

scott it sounds like an awesome article
terry cloth and wire military fabric..would love to see
vogue 98 -do u remember what season? maybe the clothes written about are from fw 98 ?

 

[kitty87kat]

Thank you for posting this. I remember loving him and following him on FashionFile (with Tim Blanks) when i was younger, the collection with the breakable dresses.

 

[Scott]

scott it sounds like an awesome article
terry cloth and wire military fabric..would love to see
vogue 98 -do u remember what season? maybe the clothes written about are from fw 98 ?

it was autumn and in fact their giant september issue.

 

[visconti]

Thanks for posting the old images and reminding me to go back to his site to watch the old show videos. His collections never fail to fascinate.

 

[cookymonster]

Here is a link to an interesting article about Hussein in the Financial Times.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6c77adb2-dddb-11dd-87dc-000077b07658.html

 

[droogist]

Here is a link to an interesting article about Hussein in the Financial Times.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6c77adb2-dddb-11dd-87dc-000077b07658.html

Oh god, he's a picky eater.

Thanks for posting the article, cookymonster - for a fluff-type piece, it was unexpectedly affecting. (But on the other hand, I'm starting to feel like I've been reading some variation of the same interview with Chalayan for the past ten years, with him insisting that he want to sell loads of clothes, and the interviewer feigning surprise...)

I like that he articulated this idea, which not a lot of people seem to have much patience for, at least as far as fashion is concerned:

One such idea, for example, is the “interconnectedness” of the world, which he says is behind all his shows. “This is not something we are taught but we should be,” he explains. “I mean, if, when you were at school, you were taught that maths and art and physics are all linked together, it would be so much more colourful, and make so much more sense. The reason a lot of kids lose interest in different areas is they think: well, but how does it relate to me? To what I’m interested in? And no one answers them! I am always trying to answer that question; I think about what I do sort of like I’m making a scientific study of an idea and then exploring it, reacting to it, trying to understand it. ‘How do these things relate to what I do?’ ”

Btw, if anyone here makes it to the Design Museum exhibit, please post a review.

 

[BerlinRocks]

some images of his exhibition at Design Museum London

i haven't seen it ... but from the images it looks like one of the best Fashion exhibition EVER ......
curator is Donna Loveday
scenography designed by Block Architecture
- exhibition images + poster : dezeen + designmuseum -

interview of Donna Loveday - dazeddigital

“A jewel-box of an exhibition” may be the best way to describe the new Hussein Chalayan exhibition that opens at the Design Museum today. How fitting then that it comes from the man of the hour, Hussein himself. Fifteen years of boundary-pushing, thought-provoking, cross-genre-hoping and quite-simply-exciting work has been lovingly edited by Chalayan and the exhibition’s curator Donna Loveday, and laid out in the small but flowing space of the Design Museum. Retrospective exhibitions tend to bask in an aura of ‘old-worldliness’, no matter how far back they reach, a decade or a century. It must surely say something about the irrefutable abounding talent of Hussein Chalayan that fifteen years of work seem as fresh today as when first shown, neither clichéd nor irrelevant.


Dazed Digital: Donna, what was it specifically about Hussein and his work that attracted you to the idea of staging this exhibition in the first place and do the big ideas he explores in his work like religion, politics, our society, make it easier for you?

Donna Loveday: I think there are a number of things actually, that drew me towards Hussein. Generally, that his work is so cross-disciplinary, that he is engaged by so many other worlds. That’s perfect for our audience here at the Design Museum, because we cover so many different areas in the museum with our exhibition programme. But equally, that he is fascinated and very interested and engaged by these bigger concepts and they very much inform the ideas behind this exhibition. So that was very interesting and I could see the potential for an amazing exhibition in the museum. Also, his own cultural heritage and background which I’ve always found quite fascinating and which he most definitely brings in to his work. So, there are many different things but I could always see the potential for a really dynamic exhibition here at the Design Museum.

DD: Hussein, when Donna first approached you with the idea did you have any reservations at all?

Hussein Chalayan: I’ve been coming to the Design Museum for years, I knew that there were very high level of shows here from the past so obviously it’s an honour to even be approached. I think the challenge has been to select what we’re going to show from such a large body of work, we had to be selective, it’s not like we’re showing in an airport…

DD: Not a bad idea!

HC: Yeah! Of course, who wouldn’t be honoured? It’s a fantastic institution and Donna has been really great to work with and very accommodating and actually, I think it’s been a journey for all of us in that I think we all learned quite a lot from this, as to what could be done, can’t be done. It’s definitely has had its ‘moments’! It’s been a bit of a journey, hasn’t it?

DL: Yes, I’d agree with that. The whole concept behind the show is very much a journey through Chalayan’s work and I think it has been a journey for us. It has been challenging but I think it’s been very much what a collaborative process is between so many different people.

DD: For someone who never seems to look back for inspiration, is having a retrospective exhibition a strange concept or even a contradiction for you?

HC: No, it’s called a retrospective but it’s not really one in a sense that I’m not a 70-year-old guy about to die and this is my retrospective! It is my work up to this day and I feel that, as a lot of my concerns from the past have been timeless issues, I could take this collection here and work on it now, again, and it will still look relevant. There is a timelessness in my work I always strive for so I don’t see it as a regressive situation. I just think it’s a great platform to celebrate the work that’s been done throughout the years.

DD: Did editing the collections make you look at different pieces from a fresh perspective?

DL: The show is broadly chronological and I see that everything has its place but I also see a progression. A lot of the earlier work seems very new to me, 1997 could be 2009, but the most exciting element for me in the show is the use of new technology with the laser dresses and the LED which for me looks at the future and the future possibilities for fashion. Maybe in 5 or 10 years time, who knows, we’ll all be wearing LED dresses!

DD: What were the challenges of putting this exhibition together with such a variety of work, from the video installations to simply the dresses on the mannequins?

DL: The challenge for me was the limited space and wanting to pack so much in, there’s so much more we could have included! Going through that editing process was quite difficult for Hussein as well…HC: Selecting between your children! I had to be selective between all my babies and there’s so much work we’ve done over the years that yes, I have to say that part was tough.

DD: Hussein’s work is so often described as ‘experimental’ and ‘innovative’, but do you think that sticking to these labels misses the entire point of each collection individually and the entire body of work so far? Do you think this exhibition will give people a different perspective?

DL: I think there has been a misconception in the press about Hussein’s work because it’s obviously these iconic pieces, ‘monumental pieces’ as Hussein refers to them, that attract the media’s attention but beyond that the collections are eminently wearable.HC: This show is not about saying to people “we make wearable clothes”, these are definitely iconic pieces but the wearable clothes that stem from them are more important in terms of the business. But in terms of inspiration, these pieces need to exist because this is what creates the basis for the rest of them.

KG: Earlier you spoke about the coffee-drinking-future-telling culture you grew up with. The Design Museum café will also be serving Turkish coffee to celebrate that. How do you balance that very romantic, charming idea with the more refined and scientific approach to fashion?

HC: I have many interests, I can one minute enjoy a grandmother reading a coffee cup and next minute I can enjoy a computer game or whatever. I don’t think you need to be one kind of person or another. I think I’ve always been like this and I like these layers in life, I like the fact that we are these sort of complex creatures and we can apply our antennae to anything!

DL: And that’s what makes conversations with Hussein so interesting!

HC: (laughs)

DL: When we talk through this exhibition Hussein covers so many different areas you come away completely overwhelmed, inspired, motivated but that’s how it is.

HC: Thank you, that’s very kind. Oh no, sometimes it can do the reverse…

DL: It can get quite overwhelming!

 

[tweeds]

i saw the Chalayan exhibition at the Design Museum yesterday - indeed it is a beautiful retrospective (as much as the word always seems to suggest the end of an era for the subject). it put together his collections and films to create a fairly coherent sense of the mind at work behind all this output. the highlights include footage of "afterwords" (screened in the space behind the pieces from the collection), his short films Absent Presence and Place to Passage, and the mind blowing "one hundred and eleven" show with the infamous disappearing dress finale. spent alot of time just watching the AV media which we don't normally get to see, and planning to go back to see the pieces again.

 

[educo]

I'm saving up my pennies just to see this exhibition.

 

[Sailor]

I find his work incredible. He manages to come up with something different each show.

 

[Over the Sea]

I love this thread, everything Chalayan designs is amazing and beautiful