Hussein Chalayan S/S 07 Paris

[laika]

In terms of how the dress "fits in," I was also thinking of geneology, although on a slightly more poetic plane. There are a lot of water references throughout the collection--the hats that look like jellyfish, the glacial dresses, even the pearls and bubbles. All of this suggests something pre-historic to me, which could be connected to the DNA reference and to the overtly historical dresses at the end. What do you think, Droogist? I could go on about this, but I don't want to sound silly.



style.com

 

[esquire]

Back to the collection, the geometrical aesthetics also remind me of some old Jonathan Saunders, surely another hugely under-appreciated designer. Here's a dress from his SS 2004 collection, from style.com.

Jonathan was really good back at that time, creative, innovative, original, inspiring & highly fresh - but I realize after seeing other shows "the one trick pony" effect on him .. I don't think he's good anymore

And Saunders never, never, ever should be compared with Hussein . His clothes on the rails looks really poor and awfully/rushed manufactured for a inexplicable high price. In fact , Imo he's lucky enough to survive in the wild & over competitive fashion of today - stressing mainly on quality issues .

Hussein clothes if you like the designs or not, all have a pristine manufacturing, in the start of his career wasnt like that , but today it look sleek as it should.

 

[Multitudes]

In terms of how the dress "fits in," I was also thinking of geneology, although on a slightly more poetic plane. There are a lot of water references throughout the collection--the hats that look like jellyfish, the glacial dresses, even the pearls and bubbles. All of this suggests something pre-historic to me, which could be connected to the DNA reference and to the overtly historical dresses at the end. What do you think, Droogist? I could go on about this, but I don't want to sound silly.

Then I'll continue the sillyness! ...

Yes Chalayan ceratinly propose a watery sensation here ...
Finally, water it self is creased, and closely woven, even the skintight fabric will still be a watery fold that reveals the body far better than nudity ... Wet folds ...as those who flows over Jean Goujon's Bas reliefs to affect the entire volume, to create the envelope ...


wikipedia.com

and the spiderweb of the whole body, including the face, as in Spinazzi's and Corradini's late masterpieces, Faith and Modersty ...




vga.hu

In every instance folds of clothing acquire an autonomy and a fullness that are not simply decorative effects. They convey the intensity of a spiritual force exerted on the body, either to turn it upside down or to stand or raise it up over again, but in every event to turn it inside out and to mold its inner surfaces. As you put it ...

it's as if he's making an imaginary architecture into clothes. Inside and outside collapse; surfaces are made entirely continuous

As Deleuze suggest the most important functions of art(If I dare to use this word in a fashion context ) in our age of subjectivity, signification and simulacra is to make us 'belive' in the body( might be the significant of the nude body in the end of the show?!!!), to restore a direct self-awareness to the body. To interrupt signifiance and subjectification: the body itself becomes expressive. Chalayan opens thought onto the body, so as to give a voice to the body before all words(pre-historic?!!!), discovering its postures, capabilities, and the forces which work upon it.

Who sounds silly now! ...

 

[JuiceMajor]

Fashion is not my main domain but I sure learn a lot in here. Thanx guys for all the insightful comment.

 

[laika]

Then I'll continue the sillyness! ...

Yes Chalayan ceratinly propose a watery sensation here ...
Finally, water it self is creased, and closely woven, even the skintight fabric will still be a watery fold that reveals the body far better than nudity ...

In every instance folds of clothing acquire an autonomy and a fullness that are not simply decorative effects. They convey the intensity of a spiritual force exerted on the body, either to turn it upside down or to stand or raise it up over again, but in every event to turn it inside out and to mold its inner surfaces.

You don't sound silly at all! Lovely post and thank you so much for the gorgeous illustrations.

It reminds me of Aby Warburg, who wrote about drapery on ancient sculptures and in renaissance paintings as "Animated Incidental Accessories." [bewegtes beiwerk, in the original] The idea is that the movement of the drapery in the paintings (which is propelled by the wind) animates the body, thus connecting it, through gesture and posture, with antiquity. (The bolded parts in your post echo this idea, I think.)

I am somewhat reluctant to apply this notion to Chalayan though, because I think he works much more geometrically--almost scientifically. Still, it's interesting to compare the garment animated by nature (wind or water) with the garment animated by technology. And I absolutely love the last bit of your post, and see it happening very clearly in his show: An expression given "to the body before all words (pre-historic?!!!), discovering its postures, capabilities, and the forces which work upon it."

 

[Multitudes]

You don't sound silly at all! Lovely post and thank you so much for the gorgeous illustrations.

It reminds me of Aby Warburg, who wrote about drapery on ancient sculptures and in renaissance paintings as "Animated Incidental Accessories." [bewegtes beiwerk, in the original] The idea is that the movement of the drapery in the paintings (which is propelled by the wind) animates the body, thus connecting it, through gesture and posture, with antiquity. (The bolded parts in your post echo this idea, I think.)

I am somewhat reluctant to apply this notion to Chalayan though, because I think he works much more geometrically--almost scientifically. Still, it's interesting to compare the garment animated by nature (wind or water) with the garment animated by technology. And I absolutely love the last bit of your post, and see it happening very clearly in his show: An expression given "to the body before all words (pre-historic?!!!), discovering its postures, capabilities, and the forces which work upon it."

Yes, I can understand why one would be reluctant, because yes it's different ways of molding/folding matter, Chalayan geomatricallity is undeniable very visible, also why I brought in your notion of his cloth being architectual, but my point was not so much comparing Chalayns forms with those of the Baroque drapery in art, it was more, despite the differency of the folds they produce, for me, that this opening thought onto the body, so as to give a voice to the body before all words, discovering its postures, capabilities, and the forces which work upon it, is somehow present and suggested in both ways of folding matter. I don't know if it makes sense, but maybe I should have been more clear in my intentions of bringing in these ideas. ...

I'm not familiar with Aby Warburg, but yes indeed I can see why you would bring Warburg in, which is very interesting, so thank you for introducing me! ...

*frantic googling Aby Warburg*

...

 

[JuiceMajor]

Interesting post.

 

[laika]

Yes, I can understand why one would be reluctant, because yes it's different ways of molding/folding matter, Chalayan geomatricallity is undeniable very visible, also why I brought in your notion of his cloth being architectual, but my point was not so much comparing Chalayns forms with those of the Baroque drapery in art, it was more, despite the differency of the folds they produce, for me, that this opening thought onto the body, so as to give a voice to the body before all words, discovering its postures, capabilities, and the forces which work upon it, is somehow present and suggested in both ways of folding matter. I don't know if it makes sense, but maybe I should have been more clear in my intentions of bringing in these ideas. ...

I'm not familiar with Aby Warburg, but yes indeed I can see why you would bring Warburg in, which is very interesting, so thank you for introducing me! ...

*frantic googling Aby Warburg*

...

No, you were very clear. That makes perfect sense now.
*berates herself for not understanding The Fold better*

I think these various ways of folding matter are very relevant to Chalayan's work. Pleating, pocketing, layers that aren't layers but extensions of a single garment--it definitely bears some relationship to the aesthetics of the drapery.

I think what bothers me is the notion that the body is the point of return for all of this.....I know Deleuze is obsessed with the body--and being a designer of clothes, Chalayan probably is too, to a certain extent--but I think HC is approaching the body in a different way. Naturally, I have not worked this out yet, so Multi, perhaps you can offer your thoughts, and tell me if I am misreading you again.

I think its significant that his garments are frequently expressed in terms of things that we view as extensions of the body--furniture, architecture, etc--and then in terms of something as interior and intimate as geneology.


Juice, you seem to be following this discussion--perhaps you can chime in as well?

 

[laika]

Here's a little excerpt from a Sleek magazine interview that may be of interest here. (Thanks to Droogist, for the article)

SLEEK: A recurring element of your work is expansion. Your clothes seem to have the urge to expand, to grow, to overcome borders. They seem to be moving away from the expected central focus of a fashion designer: the body.

HC: In some aspects. I am aware of the body, I am very body-conscious myself. However for me it is about creating a language. One can look at the body and not know whether the clothes that cover it can be termed a costume or folklore, as they lack a fixed dress code. This touches on a philosophical aspect of language, similar to Wittgenstein’s: We can only describe things we know; describing the unknown is difficult, as the words do not yet exist.
Many of my ideas are an extension of the body. As a student I spent most of my time drawing the body, I was obsessed with it. It is the ultimate cultural symbol, the ultimate centre of reference.
The way we build buildings or aeroplanes, the way the front of a car resembles a face, all that has to do with the extension and externalisation of the body. My Aeroplane Dress (1999) refers directly to this phenomenon. It is made out of fibreglass with different segments which can be deployed and moved like the wing flaps of an aeroplane. Consciously or unconsciously, we are always reflecting what we are made of.

 

[Multitudes]

No, you were very clear. That makes perfect sense now.
*berates herself for not understanding The Fold better*

I think these various ways of folding matter are very relevant to Chalayan's work. Pleating, pocketing, layers that aren't layers but extensions of a single garment--it definitely bears some relationship to the aesthetics of the drapery.

I think what bothers me is the notion that the body is the point of return for all of this.....I know Deleuze is obsessed with the body--and being a designer of clothes, Chalayan probably is too, to a certain extent--but I think HC is approaching the body in a different way. Naturally, I have not worked this out yet, so Multi, perhaps you can offer your thoughts, and tell me if I am misreading you again.

Even I berate myself for not understanding the fold ...
but lets comfort ourselfs that we can always fold, unfold and refold some more ...

I don't know if I'm right, but what I sense, which bothers you, is that the return to the body as a constant, as a point, but as you have captured in Chalayan, it's an extension of the body, and that is exactly the nature of the fold ...

The law of extremum of matter entails a maximum of matter for a minimum of extension. Thus, matter tends to flow out of the frame, as it often does in trompe l'oiel compositions, where it extends forward horizontally. Clearly some elements, such as air and fire, tend to move upward, but matter generally tends to unfold its pleats at great length, in extension.

- Gilles Deleuze The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque

There is a multiplication of lines in width, this taste for masses and this heavy broadening of mass, this fluidity or viscosity that carries everything along an imperceptible slope, in great conquest of abstraction. As Wölfflin underscores ...

The gothic underlines the elements of construction, closed frames, airy filling; Baroque underlines matter: either the frame disappears totally, or else it remains, but despite the rough sketch, it does not suffice to contain the mass that spills over and passes up above.

- Heinrich Wölfflin Renaissance et Baroque

So it's indeed an extension, it is never a point! because the point is exactly that, a constant. The contrast between a constant and a becoming. As I have also suggested in Rei's design, as whatever assures the autonomy of folds of fabric in relation to the finite wearer; as themselves raising the material fold up to infinity; as derivative forces that materialize an infinite spiritual force.

Thank you very much for the article (Droogist ), I will admit I'm also obsessed with body, as a dancer and in the drawings I do, maybe why all this speaks so much to me, and what he says in this article, i think, echoes these notions of the fold and the Baroque ...

I think its significant that his garments are frequently expressed in terms of things that we view as extensions of the body--furniture, architecture, etc--and then in terms of something as interior and intimate as geneology.

And what you say here in the end, I think, is exactly that ...

"in every event to turn it inside out and to mold its inner surfaces." ...

 

[Yimi]

ADN Fashion?

 

[notmanons]

I didn't understand the whole idea of Spring Summer 07 word of ''Futuristic''.
This show was uniquely futuristic and the clothes were so light and clean and looked incredibly airy and the colours were glowy and it had luminiscense to it and metallic sheen to it.
The movement of the clothes moved the clothing to certain and different era's which was interesting, the model's looked doll-like especially Lindsay Ellingson whose porcelain smooth skin shined in the robotic piece she wore.
Leah De Warvin (Sp?) closing the show really suprised me but it was unique of Hussein to not do an evening gown but just completely ''nothing'' but a muslin or something cloth which was sheer.

 

[kuba01]

* Hussein Chalayan S/S 07, entire collection in HQ :


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