Hussein Chalayan and Post Modern Fashion

Hussein Chalayan

Chalayan is an artist and designer, working in film, dress and installation art. Research Chalayan’s work, and then consider these questions in some thoughtful reflective writing.

1. Chalayan’s works in clothing, like Afterwords (2000) and Burka (1996) , are often challenging to both the viewer and the wearer. What are your personal responses to these works? Are Afterwords and Burkafashion, or are they art? What is the difference? Not all clothing is fashion, so what makes fashion fashion? 

Fashion

Hussein Chalayan, Burka (1996) 

Burkafashion is a set of words put together. The term burka is an Arabic term formed by the Islamic. Burka may also be referred to as Burqa which is a garment worn by women over their faces only showing their eyes and is traditional garment worn over their bodies also to cover their skin except their eyes.

A Burka can also mean Caucasus a traditional man's coat made from felt or karakul. Burka is also a district in Baghlan province, Afghanistan. So Burkafashion is a style which he formed to put together with a traditional piece and mix it with post modern style.

For the Burka Fashion style, I think that he is trying to play with the official seriousness of the cultural tradition and challenging its tradition not to produce an uproar but to broadcast the meaning of the 

Burka transitioning into post modern work, but in my opinion I see that this is art and fashion because fashion is a part of creativity which relates to the artistic mind ones self concious into developing work.

                         Hussein Chalayan, Afterwords, 2000

 Afterwords is a term related to Epiloque which is a short speech or poem in this case shown through art work/ fashion at the end of a literary work. (Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus (p.277)

For the 'Afterwords' fashion/art work , I feel that this piece is an artwork because you can use it for display for an event but i don't see it as something you would wear out or formal because of its look and structure, this seems as it was made for only art to see but not to be worn out or bought. Putting the viewer in the position of reading what this really means and how the discomfort of wearing this piece would make you feel. To me this piece is giving the viewer something to think of, its telling you a story with few detail but a lot of structure. 

In viewing both of the works and researching the meaning of the words and reading the image, this gives me a different perspective of what is fashion? what makes fashion? what is the difference, I see that the meaning of a piece of work defines its category, fashion or not fashion, it depends on the meaning. For example the Burka, i don't think you'd see someone walking around revealing their bodies and wearing it as a fashion trend. I think fashion is something that can be worn out and where people will see you wearing. The difference between the to in my opinion is that fashion art can be anything but for fashion in general it is things people wear for others to see and be comfortable and isn't as unusual as the Burka and Afterwords. 

2. Chalayan has strong links to industry. Pieces like The Level Tunnel (2006) and Repose (2006) are made in collaboration with, and paid for by, commercial business; in these cases, a vodka company and a crystal manufacturer. How does this impact on the nature of Chalayan’s work? Does the meaning of art change when it is used to sell products? Is it still art?

It is still art because they are regenerating ideas from another but instead developing it to relate to their theme and nothing is original, the ideas of arts has to have come from something. Forms of art can be developed through simple things and things already created. I don't thing the meaning of art changes if it is used to sell products, i see that it is also selling the art and the designs attracting people and finding out the meaning of it. 

3. Chalayan’s film Absent Presence screened at the 2005 Venice Biennale. It features the process of caring for worn clothes, and retrieving and analysing the traces of the wearer, in the form of DNA. This work has been influenced by many different art movements; can you think of some, and in what ways they might have inspired Chalayan’s approach?

Post Modern, Contemporary, Modern and Hyper Reality. They might have been inspired by Chalayn's work by the meaning behind the piece or either the grasping concept of his work. They may be using clothing but they are also using DNA which involve the people in it. I think the approach they are taking from Chalayn's ideas are from the tradition within which grasps the true nature of what is within and unveiling it to the viewer.

Hussein Chalayan, still from Absent Presence, 2005 (motion picture)

4. Many of Chalayan’s pieces are physically designed and constructed by someone else; for example, sculptor Lone Sigurdsson made some works from Chalayan’s Echoform (1999) and Before Minus Now(2000) fashion ranges. In fashion design this is standard practice, but in art it remains unexpected. Work by artists such as Jackson Pollock hold their value in the fact that he personally made the painting. Contrastingly, Andy Warhol’s pop art was largely produced in a New York collective called The Factory, and many of his silk-screened works were produced by assistants. Contemporarily, Damien Hirst doesn’t personally build his vitrines or preserve the sharks himself. So when and why is it important that the artist personally made the piece?

In my opinion I think it is the artist's piece because without the artist the work wouldn't have been made and also he created the idea of what should happen what it should look like and also instructing the helpers what to do. Why ? because he is the artist and creator of the work. When ? when he has thought of the creation and helps develop the idea, an artist must have help with something. It all depends on the artists creation and whoever thought of it and instructed it , they are the true artist. The one who gets it done or tells them how to. But on the other hand there is still a chance that the artist isn't the only artist, there are those who helped. 

Reference:

http://www.aims.org.af/maps/district/baghlan/burka.pdf

Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus (p.277)

http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/chalayan.html http://www.husseinchalayan.com/blog/ 

http://www.husseinchalayan.com/#/home/

http://www.slideshare.net/cjmcd/the-history-of-the-burqa

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Caucasus

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/epilogue