It takes a long time to come up with brilliant ideas and wonderfully told stories, yet there's never enough time in the fashion industry to develop ideas coherently and tell sublime tales.
Hussein Chalayan knows it very well and for the presentation of his S/S 16 collection in the Salle Melpomène at Paris' Musée des Beaux-Arts, he invited guests to re-shift the attention to time and transformation, a theme dear to him, in an ingenious way.
As the audience arrived, two models clad in white lab coat-like shirt-dresses stood still on a sort of small podium at the back of the runway. After the first half of the presentation water started pouring through the ceiling over their heads (probably very cold water judging from their reaction…), and their uniforms dissolved little by little as they were made of soluble water fabric of the kind you use in knitwear to create a support structure for embroideries and patterns.
The uniforms revealed delicate asymmetric evening gowns underneath made with appliqué white petal elements representing trees, highlighted by a black thread and punctuated by crystals (the collection was sponsored by Swarovski) that were meant to represent coconuts.
While it was painful to watch the models subjected to the (cold) water shower, the process made you wonder how many times they must have tried this trick and failed (how many papery uniforms did they create to experiment and reach this result?).
The transformation from military uniforms to evening dresses actually hinted at the main inspiration behind this collection – Cuba – and at the possibility of a transformation from a military to a more playful situation; the water was a further geographical hint to Cuba, surrounded by the sea.
The collection moved indeed from a trip to Cuba (a theme that also characterised the S/S 16 menswear designs) that Chalayan took a while back.
The garments included were perfectly wearable and many of them were characterised by a combination of military and utilitarian moods.
Cuba was a tangible reference in the bespoke cigars sported in the pockets on the chest of military-style cotton skirt-dresses and tops (in olive green or in an intense tobacco shade) characterised at times by Haute Couture silhouettes, but in a utilitarian key.
There were also pleated skirts and long dresses with factbook pie charts on Cuba, or with playful prints of the '40s Plonk cartoon character that Chalayan found in the British Library and applied on his dresses and gowns (and shirts from his menswear collection).
The second part of the collection featured a series of sporty separates constructed with soft folds, while ruffles and pleats were employed to create fan-like motifs and trains on a selection of black dresses. A few men's looks, mainly sporty yet tailored outfits for a relaxed summer, worked as a sort of occasional interlude to the collection.
All the womenswear designs were matched with shoes that featured a cylindrical wooden block for heels (unfortunately one of them detached from one of the shoes as the model was walking…) and leather uppers secured to the ankles via ropes.
The title of the collection – "Pasatiempo" (Pastime/Hobby) – and one of the prints with hands rolling tobacco leaves called to mind a very peculiar Cuban practice dating back to the mid-to-late 1800s, that of having a reader in a cigar factory. This person reads a newspaper or a book to the workers rolling cigar after cigar to help them pass away the day.
According to the tradition, some of Cuba's best known cigar brands were named after the workers' favourite books (think about the Montecristos named after Dumas' book and Romeo y Julieta, after Shakespeare's play).
Chalayan had his own cigars made for the S/S 16 men and womenswear collections, almost using them to tell us a tale, the story of his career – the Cyprus-born British designer has indeed been 21 years in business.
This event is currently being marked by the first opening of Chalayan's store in (2 Bourdon Street) London's Mayfair (something that proves it takes time to reach certain goals in life…).
Designed by ZCD Architects the store features a black steel rail frame marking out a central space in which sits a dark wooden boat-shaped counter that can be used as a presentation surface for clothes and accessories or can be reshaped (to hint at the transformation theme Chalayan loves so much) into a dining table for 12 people (while the proposed speed of the boat is recorded on a clock on the side of the cash desk).
The shop is conceived also as a space where consumers can ponder on the clothes and focus on the details of the garments.
The main idea behind the figure of the cigar reader was that it could give a chance to the cigar rollers to learn while working; Chalayan does more or less the same since he has the talent to make you think and learn not only via a catwalk show, but also via the clothes hanging in his shop.
Last but not least, from a political point of view, Chalayan's S/S 16 collection is probably the most relevant one of the fashion month. Last year Pope Francis played a key role in the U.S. policy shift on Cuba and, in mid-September, the pontiff visited the country meeting Cuban president Raúl Castro and former president Fidel Castro, so for the time being Cuba remains firmly in the spotlight. You may look here and there, but you will probably never find another collection including wearable yet elegant dresses and gowns with pie charts on Cuba.
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