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Hussein Chalayan - Readings

With every season that rolls in on the runway, fashion designer Hussein Chalayan transforms himself into an installation artist that runs on the slippery fuel of philosophy, modernity, and human interactions. The Cyprus born designer received his formal education in both his motherland and London, graduating from Central St. Martins College of Art and Design in 1993. Having won numerous awards and the recognition of the fashion world, Chalayan is still taking us by surprise with each passing season – on and off the runway. The designer’s Fall 07 show wove together the innovative use of high-tech materials and a refreshingly deep introspective perspective of human interactions with clothing.

This time around, Hussein Chalayan has combined his powers with SHOWstudio’s director Nick Knight, New York based musician Antony Hegarty, and last but not least, the oh-so-important audience of web-crawlers (us), to create a film. The project consisted of several components, beginning of course, with Chalayan’s s/s 08 collection, entitled Readings. From that, Chalayan provided readers with an accompanying paragraph describing the central concept of the collection and the film project. He wanted to bring to light the relationship between humans and the icons that they worship – from ancient times when the idolization of figures was for religious reasons, to present day where people shroud themselves with the religion of celebrity worship. Taking it one step further, Chalayan pointed out that idols would not exist without an audience to worship them.

Nick Knight clarified the less literal description by Chalayan and assigned all readers of SHOWstudio to come up with the various sounds/noises that could accompany the collection. Finally, Antony Hegarty pieced the shards together to form a slightly dizzying film that not only displays the creative genius of Chalayan, Knight, and Hegarty, but also the highlights the vital presence of an audience that may (or may not) idolize the artists.

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» Hussein Chalayan : Readings

Hussein Chalayan:Readings - 2008 Spring & Summer Look Book

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