Hussein Chalayan F/W 02 Paris

[thejarc]

I wish he'd go back to that.

 

[Laritournelle]

This is exceptional! The collection in general is pretty simple. He truly is one of the greatest and brightest minds in fashion today.

 

[4n98]

expecting to see HQ

 

[MulletProof]

^ bring them on!.

Finding HQs of anything pre-2005 is highly unlikely, unfortunately.

 

[karina_zb]

This is what you present to anyone who argues that fashion isn't art. My love for fashion came straight from shows like this, actually. It's theatrical, awkward... it invites you to open your senses and draw some sort of meaning from it. This is the side of fashion most people don't see, and it's really unfortunate if you ask me.

 

[TREVOFASHIONISTO]

this collection seems a perfect example of that time.. of what happens when you mentally, culturally and physically rip apart a traditional costume, a uniform that allegedly identifies you, what remains of it and how you find your way back to it, in case you really ever left it in the past (at least that's a bit of my interpretation).

yes you took the words right out of my mouth...He perfectly displayed a cultural brainwash and what happens when ones origins are completely destroyed.

I wish I was able to experience this show in person I bet it was emotionally moving even more than how I felt at the end.

 

[dior_couture1245]

When I look at his work I don't even necessarily classify it as fashion but more as ideas and thoughts.

I so agree.

It's easy, though, for people to write Chalayan off as a conceptualist and a maker of show-pieces...but that is a gross misconception. The genius of Chalayan is that his staggering intelligence and curiousity is presented to us via honest, wearable, albeit incredible clothing.

 

[MulletProof]

Sketches for the first part of the collection

This was featured in No. C, released in September 2002, I'm thinking the following images, about a journey through Turkmenistan played an influential role in the inspiration behind the ethnic pieces.. the journey is by another person (my eyes hurt trying to read the author), but he must've featured it in the issue he curated as it was clearly on his mind at the time?. (Do you have this issue, Scott?)

[abcdefeaturing]

 

[Scott]

i certainly do have it mullet

i agree....much of what he curated in this issue also reflected in this collection. of course much of the culture and the region has become the nucleus of most of his early work. it really challenges that whole cliché of seeking inspiration by travelling. this guy rarely has to leave london to find that kind of inspiration....and quite often more inspired than those that do travel often to seek it.

 

[CrisGalaxy]

I really enjoyed watching this.

 

[runner]

thanks Mullet


from the exhibition with the same title as this collection

date: 21.09.2002 – 26.01.2003
location: MoMu Gallery
creation: MoMu - Modemuseum Provincie Antwerpen (Museum) MoMu Gallery (Gallery)
curator: Hussein Chalayan (Fashion Design)


The MoMu Gallery opened with "Ambimorphous" curated by Hussein Chalayan (also Artdirector of the N°C Magazine). With Ambimorphous, Chalayan explores the borderline of power and powerlessness, of real experiences and surreal perception.


“The aim of the project is to explore the shady territory between realism and surrealism, power and powerlessness. As an example I intend to examine the connections between Alice in Wonderland as a representation of a surreal entity, and war as a real life force. The surreal implications of macrocosmic and microcosmic scenarios in Alice in Wonderland where the objects around the central figure are larger or smaller have connotations of power and powerlessness in controllable or uncontrollable environments. The experience of modern -day war, anonymously violent, filtered, censored and almost recreated by the media does not remain a real life experience but becomes as surreal as Alice in Wonderland itself. The ultimate object is to demonstrate that man made theories of reality and our power over this reality can reverse, and that surreal situations themselves are a part of life and do not reamin as fragments of the imagination." Hussein Chalayan

contemporaryfashion.net

 

[runner]

Jess Cartner-Morley in Paris The Guardian, Saturday 9 March 2002 11.24 GMT

Chalayan deconstructs


It has been a financially rocky six months for the fashion industry, so it is unsurprising that this catwalk season has been more about consolidation than experimentation. When in doubt, it's safest to play to your strengths.
Hussein Chalayan's show was typical; except that Chalayan's strength lies in challenging - OK, weird - clothes, so that while last night's Paris show was classic Chalayan, it was hardly classic in the navy blazer sense.

Chalayan's conceptual collections are fashion's equivalent of the Enigma code. This one was titled "Ambimorphous". It had a picture of a chairlift on a barren ski slope on the invitation, and took place on a catwalk furnished with asymmetric steel sculptures like 3-D window frames. It was accompanied by sobbing string instruments and the models had wonky short fringes, as if they had hacked them themselves in a temper.

It hardly became crystal clear when the first model emerged wearing a vivid traditional dress from eastern Turkey with touches of Chinoiserie in a silk shawl tied at the waist, walked to the end of the catwalk and stood there, stock still and alone, for 15 minutes.

Things started to make sense when she was eventually joined by a succession of models wearing outfits which, in sections, gradually replaced the beading and tapestry with plain black wool, winding up with a simple and very beautiful black coat.

Chalayan explained backstage after the show that he wanted to explore the idea of morphing between clothes and costume, between the real and the surreal - ambimorphous meaning to morph in both directions. "Alice in Wonderland and war" were cited as sources of inspiration.

The collection was circular, with the very first outfit also the finale.

At the most commercial point in the cycle, there were elegant leather coats, black mandarin collar jackets, and a toffee silk shift dress. The skirts fell in intricate rolls, a Chalayan favourite.

Painstakingly constructed deshabillé is another Chalayan trademark. A skirt which from one side looks like a pile of offcuts has a precise fan-pleat detail on the other.

But it was the least wearable outfits, in layers of rich ethnic beading and tapestry, that were the most beautiful.

Not an obvious commercial move, but, as Chalayan himself said: "I didn't really want everything to make sense."

 

[runner]

The Ambimorphous collection can be interpreted as an imaginary trip through a universe in which a range of concepts such as space, time, power, powerlessness, organic, mechanical, ethnic and modernist all play a part. The show began with a model in a richly embroidered traditional Turkish costume. Other models followed wearing clothes whose ‘ethnic’ details were gradually usurped by the black colour of a long, modernist ‘Western’ coat. Other creations were combinations, such as ‘organic’ versus ‘mechanical’. One dress was made of fabric and leather, in which the wearer’s movements were restricted by the leather elements forming a kind of harness. The show’s finale began with a black dress that changed into the ethnic costume with which the show had started.

mot-art-museum.jp

 

[MulletProof]

Thank you, runner!, I was hoping for some texts but I didn't even know the name of the collection.. you have your ways with contemporaryfashion, I visited several times and that bit on it went unnoticed!.
As I was watching the video, I kept trying to make sense of the cubes and the choreography around it, even though it's hard to put it all into words, I feel like what he tried to establish on the real/surreal project goes purely in the back of one's head.. and the fact that it's associated with war only intensifies it, especially when you consider this was right around the time of the Afghanistan invasion.
That was such a confusing time for the economy and like the author of the second article says, he hung on to his strengths in order to make it through.. maybe he moved on, or maybe after the 2007 mechanical collections, he feels a bit exhausted of tying up fashion with social and political matters and more like doing something conventional and undemanding.. but anyway, these current commercial directions are something that probably perplex me more than anything he's done before.. he has so much talent and things to say.. why not continue it?.

 

[runner]

you're welcome Mullet
I guess he is tenacious business-wise for this type of designer. maybe as tenacious as kawakubo.
it seems that he makes every effort to keep his activity. I was a bit surprised to hear it was him who approached onward/gibo back then. I would not like to take that route if I were a designer, if possible. he might have strong confidence.
and, on the other hand, he is still doing exhibitions and is introducing them for himself energetically to have people understand his total vision or creative side.


also,

"it depends on what I'm doing. Because I like ordinarily-ness as well. It becomes like sorbet. When you all the work, that is so complicated. So it really depends on the balance. But sometimes, I have the sorbet collection, sometimes I have 13 meal collection."

 

[runner]

other images from husseinchalayan.com


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