TING HSUAN CHEN 2017
HUSSEIN CHALAYAN
Born in Cypriot and educated in London, Hussein Chalayan is definitely a border crosser. He breaks down the barriers between art, architecture, fashion and technology. He never stop bringing new concepts to the audience. Through his collections, garments have more possibilities and the boundaries of the traditional function had been expanded every season.
‘Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent,’ -Ludwig Wittgenstein According to Chalayan, religion and technology provide a onesided view of reality, and also language is eventually too limited to be able to explain it. But, with this collection, Chalayan seems to indicate that reality can certainly be shown. -Panoramic AW 1998
Briefing In this term’s project, we choose a designer brand and a narrative which interested us the most. By understanding the background and philosophy of the designer brand and combine our own aesthetic together, we are expected to come out with our personal work as a creative director of the brand by paraphrasing the narratives. Also, I am encouraged to carry the term one skill mille feuille forward and try more possibilities with the new concept.
LOST BOY I met a man accidently in this rainy city. He is very smart, he is very gentle, he is very naughty and humorous. And he is very lost.
‘When you look at this city, you feel nothing but great sorrow caused by the past.’ He is so young and talented but he never knows where he wants to go. He feels lost and being a ‘L’Etranger (outlander)’ all the time after he divorced with his ex-wife at the age of 26. ‘I miss her, but I don’t remember the reason of missing her. I miss her smile, but her face already became blurry and grey.’
There are the collages I made for showing the strong feeling of my character in this narrative.
‘Eventually, somewhere deep inside my heart, I still just want to be a little boy.’ I feel very sad when I understand that everything end up like a karma in his world. Feeling hurt and then hurt others backwards repeats all the time in his life. The past haunts him through every corner. Every sights remind him all the bitter memories and the feeling of guilty never fade away....
Repeating art works and structures are used in part of my collages to show the idea of karma.
After thinking of the whole story for days, I came up with a special group of people who carry the characteristic of my protagonist: lost boys. These boys may be orphans or just run away from home. They take care themselves and seems burdenless. However, they wandering around the street day by day and have no pacific goal just like my protagonist who wandering in his life and is trying to find his future path.
The images of these lost boys show that they always wear oversized jackets because it may be hard to find a suitable kids size outfit for themselves. The main texture of their outwears are cheap-polyester mixed, water-proof coting or fake leather jackets/coats. I start to make the next part of my collages which mostly use the shapes of these volume jackets. Also, I am pretty fond of the oversized puffy pants which are tighten up at their waistlines.
The idea of ‘karma’ and the repeated images/concept male me think about the massive repeating structure of architectures and relative art works. Starting my first collage collection with numerous different shapes and details come from buildings and mixed media works.
‘Things always go back to the beginning point and act like cycles.’ Thinking of the concept of karma, I draw some sketches about using rounded belts and stripes in different angels and directions.
After some experiment of calico belts and sketches, I combine these small samples with structure images to create more silhouette. Also, some of these samples inspired me for doing some details as well.
Some of the early collages also bring up the idea of linear structure and reminds me about Mille-feuille, which I applied with organza for my project last term and really had fun with.
This time I prefer not to use any chiffon/organza type of fabrics but just try to test some new fabrics or materials to make mille-feuille. The first try of black lining polyester shows nice stiffness and really easy to deal with. But the skill is the same with using organza. Thinking of the surface texture of those boy’s jackets, I want to try the really fine and thin nylon fabric which usually used for making down jackets. However, considering the price, I turn up to try different plastic bags. Some of them are very thick and heavy, some of them have similar thin texture with nylon fabrics.
The mille-feuille with the thinnest plastic bag has a very soft texture and feels just like the down jacket with feathers inside. However, the thinnest plastic is too soft and need a better support from other thicker plastic materials.
The final selected silhouette has puffy volume, long sleeves and asymmetry details. Some of the details are not very mature in this version, but I decided to make the first pattern about them.
The idea of making a box shape and insert the mille-feuille in between appears again. There are three different ways to make the pattern. I decided to make a sample from one of them after thinking the different steps of pattern making and sewing.
I continue to simplify the details and then try to combine with the element of mille-feuille. This time, I also want to try top-stitches which was not able to be seen at the internal side of fabric last term. To make the top-stitches looks more obvious, apply fusing at the back not only maintain the garment shape better but also make the depth of stitches more clear.
The idea of rounded stripes did not work with plastic stripes well so I focus on doing the simplified detail which looks like 3D plaids form distance.