HUSSEIN CHALAYAN AT THE DESIGN MUSEUM


The Design Museum has finally devoted an exhibition to twice named British Fashion Designer of the year Hussein Chalayan.

Having exhibited his work around the world including MOMA in New York the British designer and CSM alumnus Chalayan was at January the 21st honoured with his first major UK exhibition. Chalayan is an unusual designer working in that space where art, architecture and fashion meets and is widely renowned for being a leader in experimental and conceptual design.
“I don’t see fashion as an isolated island” said Chalayan and commented on the exhibition itself “I see this as an opportunity to invite other audiences from the world of architecture, art and design.”

In Chalayans world suitcases and other furniture might well serve as outfits. The exhibition is spanning over his fifteen years of experimental projects including a dress made of Swarovski crystals and 15,000 flickering LED lights and his ‘Before Minus Now’ a dress made of aircraft construction materials which changes shape with help from a remote control.

Chalayan was born in Turkey in 1970 and moved with his family to London in 1978. His work is naturally highly influenced by his personal background with themes such as cultural identity, displacement and migration. Probably what shows his inspiration best is the film he contributed with to the Venice biennale in 2005- a film featuring actress Tilda Swinton wearing a biologist’s uniform dipping the T shirts of three non Bristish women in solution to get their DNA sequences. The film was meant to illustrate the suspicion against foreigners in the terrorism age.
Chalayan graduated from CSM in 1993 with a collection that contained clothes which he had buried in the back of his garden and dug up again a couple of days later. The entire collection titled “The Tangent Flowers” was soon after bought by fashion boutique Browns.

The exhibition is on until May 17th. Tickets costs £6 and allows you to visit all the Deign Museums current exhibitions, to buy yours go to www.ticketweb.com.