Chalayan is widely recognised as being far more than a Fashion Designer; with his desire to span all design disciplines in his work, and from seeing the results that this desire produces, it would be a crime to pigeon-hole him into one category.
So what is it that makes him so vastly different?
He’s not like McQueen in the sense that he uses art & architecture to create controversial fashion, instead, Chalayan uses fashion to create miniaturised architecture. His work carries a real spatial quality; his collections create the effect of clothing that is inhabited as opposed to being worn.
Through exploring technology & space, the garments interact with their wearer, surrounding & enclosing them in a wealth of texture & materiality. He uses the architects palette of materiality to create his garments, his catalogue including a series of plastic, electrically wired & wooden garments; from light-up & moving dresses to his most famous wooden “table skirt” (so well-known that he himself is now tired of speaking about it).
To many Chalayan’s ideas could be viewed as crazy little quirks but to an architect his work is an incredible learning tool (Chalayan is often used in Architecture School curriculums), His clothing exhibits a great understanding of the human form & proportion, he knows exactly how manipulating space & light can drastically alter the human perception & emotion. He is so much more than a designer exploiting a shock or controversy factor, he is teaching us how to understand our interaction with the world around us, making us see how our decisions can & will affect the context of our daily lives.
He studies the world & its culture and by using form, materiality, space, light & context he produces a wondrous & technologically advanced structure that encases us to secure & protect us in our everyday. And if that’s not a true architect then I don’t know what is…
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