Like the onslaught of cheap-n-chic retailers chasing after every luxe designer, museums continue the sprint toward showcasing fashion. Who can fault them? The lure of a wide swath of clotheshorses guaranteed to line up and, most certainly, buy the glossy catalog and anything else offered in the museum store is attractive enough. Throw in the inevitable press beyond the art section and the patina of glamour by association (especially on opening night), and the pairing is all too irresistible.
To those of us who also can’t help but submit, however, the high getting there can quickly go the way of those wicked stilettos snatched at an end-of-season sale. So fantastic at first sight. But walk a few steps in them and poor execution in design turns into the pain of possibility lost—including those vanished dollars. Last year’s “Superheroes” show at the Met in New York comes to mind. I was so disillusioned at what might've been that I couldn’t even bother to buy the souvenir book. A break in habit Andy found shocking.
A few weeks later in London, hope was restored and the bar lifted with the Viktor & Rolf retrospective at the Barbican Art Gallery. This wasn’t just a lot of breathtaking clothes on a legion of mannequins. There were multimedia elements and, most importantly, a context provided that underscored that the output by these designers is more than about dressing customers. Whether it was a fake perfume meticulously articulated down to the sumptuous ads, or protest complete with signs and graffiti scrawled across Paris, for the Dutch duo, creating involves every tool and medium at their disposal.
This week in London, we hit the Design Museum for the 15-year survey of Hussein Chalayan, which opened just a week and a bit ago and closes May 17. It’s an expanded incarnation of similar shows already staged in Berlin and Groningen, this time underwritten by Puma, where Chalayan was appointed creative director a year ago.
The British/Turkish Cypriot designer is a contemporary of a class at Central Saint Martins that included Katie Grand, Alexander McQueen and Giles Deacon. Yet the 38-year-old Chalayan manages to stand apart from even this revolutionary group with collection after collection of work that is as technically innovative as it is handcrafted, sensual as it is cerebral.
The show features only some three-dozen looks. But even where a mannequin stands alone in a blank room, the scene is rich with content because in Chalayan’s works there is always a story.
This is a man of many ideas and talents, and this retrospective allows the rest of us to peek into that genius. The exhibition differs from other museum showcases on fashion because it’s not so much a costume presentation as a survey of a creator’s explorations into culture, politics, technology, anthropology and the environment. Thankfully, this is not the place to see the more wearable, commercial pieces that can be found upstairs at Dover Street Market or elsewhere. They’re important, too. Fashion is a business. But this is a mad scientist/witty magician who conjures pieces that trigger shifts in perceptions. Like his classmates, the art of fashion is not a lot of lip service.
The presentation is broken down alphabetically, the story behind each vignette economically spelled out in a thick, palm-sized catalog filled with drawings, images and explanations for it all. The free, double-stapled booklet, simply rendered in black ink on white paper, resembles a fanzine. With no glossy hardback on sale in the store, it’s clear this low-tech giveaway, like every other detail in the show, is exactly as Chalayan conceived.
While manhandling the stuff is not an option, it is possible to get within sniffing distance of the fabrics and contemplate each outfit from every angle. This enhances the experience, which swings from a static grouping of mannequins to a runway video of his remote-controlled animatronic couture, to a multi-element installation involving a sculpture inside a sink and a short film featuring Tilda Swinton (that patron saint of provocateurs, including Viktor & Rolf).
What we failed to get to see was one of his over-cited works, a fashion moment if there ever was one, the fall 2000 collection called “Afterwords.” Among the most frequently referenced is the look in which a model steps into the center of a round coffeetable, only to pull up the center ring to her waist and let multiple bands of polished wood fall into place like so many tiers on a skirt. This was furniture morphing into fashion. Sadly, we missed examining it up close.
But there were plenty of other enthralling so-called moments to gape at: The dresses and airplane wing loaded with LED elements and Swarovski crystals; the Tyvek patterns folding into envelopes for posting; the black gossamer slip suspended by black helium balloons; or a dress embedded with 200-some shooting red lasers.
If it all left us craving for anything (besides the sartorial furnishings) it was more time to contemplate those mesmerizing images of Swinton. Or to backtrack for a third closer look at the morality play as pattern covering the walls and the mannequin’s dress. Or to simply dream of a day when our own clothes can convert into something else at the push of a button.
Top Photo by Chris Moore
Photo No. 4 by RA
To those of us who also can’t help but submit, however, the high getting there can quickly go the way of those wicked stilettos snatched at an end-of-season sale. So fantastic at first sight. But walk a few steps in them and poor execution in design turns into the pain of possibility lost—including those vanished dollars. Last year’s “Superheroes” show at the Met in New York comes to mind. I was so disillusioned at what might've been that I couldn’t even bother to buy the souvenir book. A break in habit Andy found shocking.
A few weeks later in London, hope was restored and the bar lifted with the Viktor & Rolf retrospective at the Barbican Art Gallery. This wasn’t just a lot of breathtaking clothes on a legion of mannequins. There were multimedia elements and, most importantly, a context provided that underscored that the output by these designers is more than about dressing customers. Whether it was a fake perfume meticulously articulated down to the sumptuous ads, or protest complete with signs and graffiti scrawled across Paris, for the Dutch duo, creating involves every tool and medium at their disposal.
| Hussein Chalayan by Andreas Kokkino |
This week in London, we hit the Design Museum for the 15-year survey of Hussein Chalayan, which opened just a week and a bit ago and closes May 17. It’s an expanded incarnation of similar shows already staged in Berlin and Groningen, this time underwritten by Puma, where Chalayan was appointed creative director a year ago.
The British/Turkish Cypriot designer is a contemporary of a class at Central Saint Martins that included Katie Grand, Alexander McQueen and Giles Deacon. Yet the 38-year-old Chalayan manages to stand apart from even this revolutionary group with collection after collection of work that is as technically innovative as it is handcrafted, sensual as it is cerebral.
The show features only some three-dozen looks. But even where a mannequin stands alone in a blank room, the scene is rich with content because in Chalayan’s works there is always a story.
This is a man of many ideas and talents, and this retrospective allows the rest of us to peek into that genius. The exhibition differs from other museum showcases on fashion because it’s not so much a costume presentation as a survey of a creator’s explorations into culture, politics, technology, anthropology and the environment. Thankfully, this is not the place to see the more wearable, commercial pieces that can be found upstairs at Dover Street Market or elsewhere. They’re important, too. Fashion is a business. But this is a mad scientist/witty magician who conjures pieces that trigger shifts in perceptions. Like his classmates, the art of fashion is not a lot of lip service.
The presentation is broken down alphabetically, the story behind each vignette economically spelled out in a thick, palm-sized catalog filled with drawings, images and explanations for it all. The free, double-stapled booklet, simply rendered in black ink on white paper, resembles a fanzine. With no glossy hardback on sale in the store, it’s clear this low-tech giveaway, like every other detail in the show, is exactly as Chalayan conceived.
While manhandling the stuff is not an option, it is possible to get within sniffing distance of the fabrics and contemplate each outfit from every angle. This enhances the experience, which swings from a static grouping of mannequins to a runway video of his remote-controlled animatronic couture, to a multi-element installation involving a sculpture inside a sink and a short film featuring Tilda Swinton (that patron saint of provocateurs, including Viktor & Rolf).
What we failed to get to see was one of his over-cited works, a fashion moment if there ever was one, the fall 2000 collection called “Afterwords.” Among the most frequently referenced is the look in which a model steps into the center of a round coffeetable, only to pull up the center ring to her waist and let multiple bands of polished wood fall into place like so many tiers on a skirt. This was furniture morphing into fashion. Sadly, we missed examining it up close.
But there were plenty of other enthralling so-called moments to gape at: The dresses and airplane wing loaded with LED elements and Swarovski crystals; the Tyvek patterns folding into envelopes for posting; the black gossamer slip suspended by black helium balloons; or a dress embedded with 200-some shooting red lasers.
If it all left us craving for anything (besides the sartorial furnishings) it was more time to contemplate those mesmerizing images of Swinton. Or to backtrack for a third closer look at the morality play as pattern covering the walls and the mannequin’s dress. Or to simply dream of a day when our own clothes can convert into something else at the push of a button.
Top Photo by Chris Moore
Photo No. 4 by RA
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