Hussein Chalayan
REVIEW
COMPLETE COLLECTION
LONDON, February 16, 2000
By
Hussein Chalayan set his stage up like a sitting room. Very spare, it consisted of four chairs, a table, a flat screen television, several vases and pots, and lots and lots of white space. What has all this to do with clothes? In Chalayan's world, everything. Chalayan's models appeared dressed in seemingly simple clothes like a black coat, or tan trench, and then secreted away the household objects inside the coats or in outer pockets. Like millennial (and amazingly chic) nomads, they wandered the stage in stiff black dresses inspired by Christian Dior, ruffled skirts, shirts with strange volumes, all of it perfectly proportioned, very new and outrageously modern.Chalayan's finale was quite astonishing. Four models clad in chic gray shift-dresses approached the set of chairs, removed the covers and literally put them on. The chair covers became perfect versions of the shifts they were already wearing. The last model stepped inside the table, lifted it up, and it transformed into a wooden skirt (the real fashion-insider will remember Chalayan's graduation show included a wooden skirt too). Finally the chairs folded into suitcases, which were carried off the stage, the television screen disappeared, and we were left looking at an empty room. If it sounds like a magic; that's because it was.
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