Chalayan
Hussein Chalayan (1970). Fashion designer, born in Cyprus. His father had a restaurant in the London suburbs. In 1993 he graduated from the Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London, and his Collection was purchased in bulk and shown in the windows of Browns. Introverted and cerebral, he designs experimental clothes (he also uses plexigas) that are on the borderline with art, as in the case of the very famous chador deconstructed in 3 pieces from 1997. For his sure hand in cutting and his intellectual qualities his clothes have often been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, at the Barbican, and at the Hayward Gallery. In 1999 he was awarded the title Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards. He also designs the Collection for the American brand Tsé Cashmere.
In recent years, Chalayan’s success and good luck have been evident in surprising ways. Franco Pené (of the Florentine company Gibò), a true fashion talent scout at the international level, included by The Times in a list of the 25 new names that matter, has produced and distributed him. Pené also discovered and produced Alexander McQueen, the duo Victor & Rolf (with whom he established a company), and Julie Verhoven.
Chalayan has invented and produced, together with graphic designers Rebecca Brown and Mike Heart, a dress that, as its name, Airmail indicates, can be put in an ordinary envelope and mailed like a letter. For the time being it is produced only in a run of 200 samples. It is made of tyvek, a material combining the characteristics of paper and fabric.
For the first time Chalayan has presented his Spring-Summer men’s Collection in Paris. It is produced on license by Gibò, which already produces the women’s line. The line, called Absence et Présence, has 35 garments, most in cotton, denim, and wool, both formal and casual.
The Paris shop Colette, a temple of new trends, dedicates an entire window to the ethnic fashion of Chalayan. For the Spring-Summer season he has abandoned the ethnic, though, in favor of a skillful play of cuts, vents, and glimpses. He has also used the porthole-cut tubular jersey in a multiplicity of overlapping layers, creating the effect of a hole closed by another hole. The same effect is repeated with the chiffon plissé soleil. The Collection is composed of small jackets belted around the waist, vaguely military in shape, worn over skirts with a lateral puff and blouses slightly tucked in the back. On the stage were six musicians (the designer among them) and a very loud techno sound.
The 2004 men’s Collection is a striking journey between past and future, based on memory and on the link with one’s own roots. It isn’t a classic presentation, but an unconventional way to present clothes through a movie shot in Athens, Temporal Meditations, in a message made of historical references and metaphors. At the Teatro La Pergola of Florence one sees clothes and symbols taken from his native Cyprus, which are the real protagonists of a 20-minute film directed and conceived by the designer himself. There are suggestive scenes with backgammon players who use pieces of ice and rituals that resemble magic against bad luck on a landing strip.
The Groninger Museum hosts a retrospective dedicated to the last two years of work of this designer of Turkish-Cypriote origins.
He represents Turkey at the 51st edition of the Biennial of Venice with the installation The Absent Presence.