Chalayan Salt

hussein chalayan with creations exploring the edge of imagination, the celebrated designer is ‘an artist who uses clothes as a medium’ and his work with swarovski consolidates his laudable desire to create the unimaginable WORDS Lisa Armstrong

Sometimes, when you’ve been ramrodded into and out of a show which consisted of little more than a blur of camel hotpants not dissimilar to the 740 camel hotpants you’ve already seen, the heart can bounce into a slough of despondency. But every so often a light is shone into this morass by a designer who does not so much think outside the box as refuse to acknowledge it. More often than not this designer’s name is Hussein Chalayan.

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Chalayan’s reputation as ‘The Maverick’ got a kick-start when, as a St Martins student, he buried his graduate collection – in the days before anyone had heard of Max Clifford’s stunts – in order to lend it an interesting patina. The éclat of the catwalk label was further burnished in 1995 with those articulated wooden skirts and dresses that turned into a table and suitcases, enabling the models to trot straight off to the airport at the end

Marcus PalMqvist

DRESS TO THRILL Above To see Hussein Chalayan’s creations in action, scan this QR code Opposite A vintage-shaped mechanical dress from Chalayan’s innovative 2007 collection

I’m speaking literally about the light – usually generated using Swarovski Elements. Collaborations in fashion are two a penny. But the five-year (and counting) marriage between Chalayan and Swarovski, a company that sees a concept and transforms it into something so decorative and technologically advanced it defies categorization, has been one of the most productive and thought provoking – a lyrical fusion of fashion and technology.

of the show. there was just one problem after that triumph. how on earth could you imagine following that? how about chalayan’s 2007 whirl though a century of fashion, with mechanical dresses that morphed into different silhouettes from the twenties, thirties and fifties, many sparkling with crystals? or the fiberglass dress inspired by a flight deck, complete with control panel in 2006? or the expanding circles that framed his models in 2007, while shafts of light and crystals (more of that swarovski magic) danced around their bodies? ‘the collection represents an abstract story book depicting evolution,’ chalayan said at the time, in typical gnomic style. ‘the mechanical dresses represent the Big Bang, the start of the universe and existence.’ it sure as hell beat those collections that are about blagging a part on the next season of The Only Way is Essex or dating a footballer. suits illuminated with flight-path patterns, laser jackets, a show-stopping appearance at runway rocks… his partnership with swarovski has lit up entire concert halls with ingenious feats of physics comprising 15,000 Led twinkling pinpricks and liberal smotherings of crystals. they also happen to have produced some of the most talked-about and genuinely avant-garde catwalk moments of the past decade.

Whether or not you like your fashion with a side order of philosophy, philology and psychology, it never hurts to have a thoughtful designer on the scene. his meticulous research meanders far and wide. once while viewing a rail of his clothes, he asked me whether my family had come from eastern europe. they had. he had recently been studying physiognomy. sometimes, i muse, i wonder how he ever found himself designing clothes in the first place? he says it’s because of his love for the body. ‘i have a huge appreciation for architecture and aerodynamics and i think that the body is the ultimate form to design for. But i often use other media to create a platform for these ideas, such as video, film, photography and sculpture.’ if he is uncompromising, then it’s only as those who successfully challenge conventional notions of beauty and function often are.

More often than you might think, his clothes are the essence of chic simplicity and timelessness, although there is never anything simple about their cut and construction. out of the experiments and meditations come wearable breakthroughs. Accompanying 2008’s lime- or cobalt-colored breast plates that looked as though they had been poured from concrete, for instance, were micro minidresses that had been sliced from a new synthetic foam fabric that was developed especially by chalayan.

the A/W 2011 FloAting Dress hAs tiny crystAls set into mAgnetic holDers thAt Fly up AnD cAscADe DoWn like snoWFAll 112

it will be another accolade for British fashion’s most enigmatic eminence. it’s not that fashion seems too small a word for what he does – he says he loves the disciplines of shows and deadlines. But, he says, ‘i’ve finally come round to thinking of myself as an artist who happens to use clothes as his medium.’ if that sounds earnest, it shouldn’t. i’m thinking in particular of the laser-firing (courtesy of swarovski) dresses from 2008. eat your heart out, gaga.

Lisa Armstrong is fashion editor of the Daily Telegraph

claire robertson; catwalking.com; getty images

his latest collaboration with swarovski, from autumn/winter 2011 is the ‘floating dress’, a miracle of tiny crystals set into magnetic holders that fly up from the dress and cascade about it creating a twinkling snowfall, captured in a mesmerizing film directed by chalayan, and on show to the public for the first time in a retrospective exhibition in Paris from July 5 to november 13, with six key crystal pieces from past collaborations.

touch of genius Opposite page, top chalayan makes tweaks, A/W 2007.

Bottom, left A/W 2007 and right A/W 2008

go gAdget, go Above futuristic robots made up the ďŹ nal look in the evolution-themed autumn/winter 2008 show

heAd-turners Top to bottom swarovskiand laser-diode dress, 2008; bubble dress, 2007; graphic of oating dress, A/W 2011