Despite what the main players want us to believe, there is a lot of loneliness, solitude and isolation in the fashion world.
In a way, even when the fashion industry pretends it is opening its doors to ordinary people like young bloggers, it’s actually behaving like a self-centering magnet, trying to recreate a sort of condescending elite within the elite, superficially opening its sancta sanctorum to the masses, yet effectively recreating new states of isolation.
But the fashion industry is definitely not the only isolated and isolating force in our modern society.
New means of communications - think about mobile phones and the Internet - may have given us the chance of quickly finding new friends or sending instant messages to somebody living miles away from us, but they also created new levels of loneliness and isolation, making us forget too often the importance of real social interaction (yes, I’m among those people who find rather unnerving chatting with/interviewing somebody who checks their mobile phone every 3 seconds).
Yet it can be a hard task to describe and define isolation and its social implications, and it can be even harder to do so in a fashion collection.
So far Hussein Chalayan proved through his designs, films and art projects that he is able of sparking up thought-provoking dialogues, moving from abstract concepts, dissecting the psychological, social and political truths in our lives while also referencing technology and science.
For his Spring/Summer 2011 collection Chalayan moved from Japanese poetry and theatre and from the more surreal aspects of the Japanese culture, one of them being the “sakoku”.
This term relates to the policy of isolation during the Tokugawa Period, when the country was closed to the outside world.
Further studies on this subject actually proved that Japanese trade continued under this period of time and cultural exchanges didn’t stop, as Japan kept on introducing Chinese culture, but also Western Culture through its contacts with the Dutch.
Chalayan somehow did the same, focusing on a state of "open" isolation that he translated in his collection into an exploration of his own archives, reintroducing some of his previous designs and updated or simplifying them.
The designer presented his collection in Paris at the beginning of October with a film.
Chalayan’s 14-minute long video (it was available on the Internet for a short while and you can still watch it from this link, though I’m not sure how long it will be available for before it gets spotted and removed for copyright reasons...) has a sort of narrative structure, since it is divided into different sections.
Each section is introduced by a title that is somehow used to describe a different group of designs included in the new collection.
The titles are almost a way to introduce the designer’s main idea or concept (and remember how Chalayan often claimed he is an ideas person) and visualise his feelings, thoughts and inspirations.
The first chapter of the film is entitled [Sakoku] and features a mysterious figure in black attire (we will discover only later on in the film the role of this figure and its connection with the Bunraku theatre), followed by images of models in black and white trouser suits with their heads covered by a black or white veil.
A new chapter, [Decentered], introduces instead designs such as waistcoats matched with light voile dresses in pale blue erupting from the side seams.
[Wrapping in Transition] focuses mainly on deconstructed designs with dresses and shirts characterised by separated rigid collars and diagonal broderie anglaise edging, almost a reference to thin yet strong Japanese paper or "washi" and to Japan's obsession with packaging (also appearing in the paper-like designs with pale blue patterns).
Chiaroscuro contrasts appear in the section entitled [Shadow Reading] mainly comprising designs with sheer chiffon sleeves or mesh inserts and opaque/matte fabrics, while [Imminence of Water] features deconstructed shifts, long column dresses and creations that call to mind in their tight bodices and full skirt the tutu of Edgar Degas’ "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years".
[Haiku] remains the most poetical part of the film, with a model in a floral chiffon dress surrounded by black puppeteer-like figures moving her dress and turning her into a puppet of the Bunraku theatre (View this photo) performing a traditional auspicious, celebratory or 'travel' dance (try to see if the link to the video still works to watch the effect and also listen to the very evoking soundtrack by Robin Rimbaud AKA Scanner).
The video closes with the final section, [Floating Body], with curving waistcoats (similar to the ones included in the Spring/Summer 2010 collection), shirt and tunic dresses incorporating capes (that add a touch of futurism to the collection) in shades of fuchsia, jade green or burnt orange, their rigid silhouettes creating the illusion of floating on the models' bodies.
Though this collection displays strong links with some previous designs by Chalayan, the emphasis remains on minimalism (also mirrored in the shoes - mainly wooden platform sandals with ankle shackles, a reference in their look and material of choice to the Japanese "geta" sandals) and functionality.
Luckily, Chalayan managed to avoid the most banal references to Japan, from kimono sleeves to trendy obi belts (seen on hundreds of runways in New York…), introducing the main inspirations for this collection via subtle details like the paper-like decorations mentioned above or the black patent inserts on crepe satin dresses evoking Japanese lacquer cabinets.
Chalayan's video closes with a cryptic sentence: “It will be lost if the floating shadows catch up with reality.”
Does that "It" refer to the title of the film and of the collection, "Sakoku"?
If so, is the designer trying to tell us that the state of isolation will be broken if the watchers focus their attention on the "floating shadows" embodied in the film by the mysterious puppeteers, finally seeing them and making them real, tangible? The doubt remains.
What we know for sure is that with this collection Chalayan made a rather original connection with puppet theatre, avoiding more banal references to the rich and colourful costumes of the Bunraku theatre to look at the deeper meanings that the role of the puppeteers may provide.
In the Bunraku theatre the puppeteers are indeed on stage and in full view and their physical presence gives the puppet an uncanny physical power.
By including Bunraku puppeteers in his film, Chalayan tried to give his collection more physicality, breaking once again the boundaries of fashion superficiality to find new, more powerful and stronger signifiers behind fashion and beyond isolation.
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