CHALAYAN HAS IT DOWN TO A FINE ART

Hussein Chalayan is not your average designer. His monumental creations show that there are no boundaries between the worlds of fashion, science, architecture and art, and lead you to the conclusion that when it comes to clothes, practicality is not always essential. Over his seventeen years of designing Chalayan has created the most thought-provoking and controversial pieces, which divide the fashion community by both impressing and baffling in equal measure.

Ever since his grand entrance into the fashion world – a critically lauded Central St Martins graduate design collection which contained clothes that he had buried in his back garden before digging them up again – Turkish-born Chalayan has used science and art to inspire his designs. However, this month sees the first foray Chalayan has made into installation work; a multi-disciplinary exhibition in Edgware Road’s intimate Lisson Gallery as part of London Fashion Week.

From the purveyor of skirts that double up as wooden coffee tables, laser LED material and dresses that also helpfully work as hats, I was ready for anything as I walked through the vast glass doors of the Lisson into I Am Sad Leyla ( Üzgünüm Leyla). Initially I found nothing surprising: here were Chalayan’s iconic broad-brimmed hats with hidden visors, here was his familiar Spring/Summer ‘07 look. But looking closer at the life-size mannequin that greeted me in the entrance hall it became clear that this was not just fashion – this was fashion, art, science, music and history in four small white rooms, inviting visitors to do some serious interpretation.

The exhibition has a strong musical element – ‘Üzgünüm Leyla’, a traditional Turkish folk composition sung by Sertab Erener, one of Turkey’s most successful female singers, accompanies you around the gallery; a refrain which, though beautiful, can become quite haunting in the darker rooms below the entrance. Descending the stairs, I was confronted by Sertab’s projected face peering out of a wall from beneath one of Chalayan’s endless black hats, ready to follow visitors around the room. As important as her outfit was – sheer camel skirt and white blouse, very 2010! – I had a feeling this was about more than just hem-lengths and hats. In a dark adjoining room an entire orchestra, seemingly magnified by about ten-thousand, stare unsmilingly at visitors before striking up again with their eerie arrangement.

So what is it about, if not a new kind of shoe that can turn into a bag or vice-versa – as I had been expecting from Chalayan. The man himself told Dazed Digital that “the idea was to create a new context for this genre of Turkish music which, in itself an art form, has constantly shifted musical structure due to the amorphous nature of Turkish culture and history .” Understandable, although not sartorially groundbreaking. I did enjoy my journey through the dark and musical rooms of Chalayan’s mind, which I’m positive can be analysed to death from historical, musical and artistic perspectives, but as a fashionista I wouldn’t recommend the exhibition to die-hard fans of interactive fashion searching for the next pearl of designer wisdom. However, for true Chalayan fans, I Am Sad Leyla ( Üzgünüm Leyla) gives us an insight into Hussein Chalayan doing what Hussein Chalayan does best – breaking boundaries, destabilising definitions and above all, defying all expectations.