Nailed the Surreal Surfaces: Chalayan A/W 2014

Quite a few artists have explored the concept of space. Readers of this site may remember for example Lucio Fontana and Paolo Scheggi: the former prompted viewers to go beyond the canvas; the latter invited them to travel instead within it, in a sort of spatial and temporal continuum.

Fontana also inspired a famous Mila Schön collection, while echoes of Scheggi reappered in recent collections playing with the concepts of infinite spaces.

Quite often in his avant-garde designs, Hussein Chalayan analysed the space surrounding a woman's body, coming up with creations that ingeniously framed, encased or trapped the body.

For his Autumn/Winter 2014 collection the designer explored once again the idea of a physical space, moving from his own office, and adding to this main inspiration, a series of sub-themes such as construction, texture and colour.

Simplicity was the keyword for the first part of the collection that featured stark leather ensembles, elegant jackets and side-zippered coats characterised by a squarish pattern. Though at times oversized, jackets and trousers were not taken to ridiculous proportions and never verged towards the unwearable.

The palette in this first part of the collection was dark and mainly revolved around green, grey and burgundy.

A softer inspiration followed with faux furs designs that surface-wise mimicked crumbling walls, seamless draped motifs on grid-like textiles, and loose knits made with a mixture of angora, mohair, and wool.

A lighter and unexpectedly fun mood came towards the end with some rather unusual surface elaborations borrowed not from architecture, but from cosmetics that was allegedly inspired by an installation of beauty products created and photographed in the designer's studio.

The designer came up indeed with three gowns, two with a series of appliqued acrylic nails in graphic black and white patterns, one with red/pink rows of nails. There was actually art also in that: Chalayan may have seen last year's exhibition of Enrica Borghi at the Estorick Collection, in London.

Borghi uses discarded materials to comment upon contemporary society: her surreal neo-classical sculptures and busts of women covered in scale-like fake fingernails play with the fragile Vs strong dichotomy while hinting at the condition of modern women, trying to escape their everyday domestic life (her busts often feature thimbles, floor rags and other ordinary materials) while endlessly pursuing an often unattainable beauty.

The nail theme continued in layered gazar evening gowns with a ripped and slashed motif over the chest that revealed a different structure beneath and that reminded of Schiaparelli's surreal 1938 tear dress (though in the latter the ripped motif was printed View this photo).

The gowns looked as if they had been through a nail slashing session, while the final organza dresses with panels peeling back to reveal shiny technical threads tracing delicate lines in perspectives refocused the attention on the architectural theme.