Designer Hussein Chalayan in Conversation with Sandy Black

Part artist, part sculptor, part showman, and part fashion designer, Hussein Chalayan has made the fashion performance his consummate medium of expression. Chalayan’s influential work in fashion, since his debut in 1993, has been the subject of innumerable profiles and interpretations and in 2004 a retrospective exhibition marking ten years was staged at the Gröninger Museum in The Netherlands. Five years on, From Fashion and Back, his first solo exhibition in the UK has been presented in London at the Design Museum (see review in this issue). Chalayan is an innovator and an intellectual, pioneering approaches to fashion that draw on areas such as anthropology, science, and technology, and the personal philosophy which informs his own beliefs and identity. Through his fashion show presentations, installations, and film collaborations Chalayan has created memorable spectacles that often comment on the human situation and political circumstances of our times, particularly in relation to his own Turkish-Cypriot ethnicity. Through precise and visionary choreography of an impressive range of collaborators and technical experts, Chalayan expresses concepts often rooted in displacement, trans-migration, and transformation, making personal, cultural, and socio-political statements in addition to creating beautiful objects and fashion for sale. It is these seminal moments of catwalk performance that have become iconic in contemporary fashion—both visually and intellectually. In Chalayan’s hands, the dress becomes emblematic and layered with meanings, whether or not these are perceived and understood by his audience: the personal concept and design development process are essential for the designer. Hussein Chalayan was born in Cyprus in 1970, and later studied at Central St Martins College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London, graduating in 1993. His graduate collection, The Tangent Flows, was famously covered in iron filings and buried in the garden for weeks before being shown. Since launching his own label, he has twice been named British Designer of the Year in 1999 and 2000. Just before the Autumn/Winter 2009 collections (February 13, 2009), Sandy Black spoke to Hussein Chalayan about his own practice, designers’ influence, and the wider issues of sustainability in fashion design and manufacturing. This journal is edited by Sandy Black, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK and Marilyn DeLong, College of Design, University of Minnesota, USA