”I’ve been doing this so long I don’t even think about it,” Hussein Chalayan said on Friday as models cheered after a stellar show. ”It’s just instinctual.”
Mr. Chalayan’s clothes reflect nearly 20 years of knowledge: innovative cutting, meditations on culture and identity and, inevitably, the struggles of an independent London designer. An exhibition in Paris last year gave insight into his early work as it illuminated an entire creative period in fashion.
I first met Mr. Chalayan in the mid-’90s, around the time he was doing some clothes for Björk, and I remember his show with the topiary dresses at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. As ingenious as some of his shows were, he is known for making simple, flattering dresses and sporty separates. And, in a way, as fashion has shifted toward dressy and conceptual clothes, his kind of minimalism feels just right.
His spring 2012 show drew raves for both the clothes and presentation. Dressed as a waiter, he handed a Champagne flute to each model as she came out; inside was a tiny camera, and as she pretended to take a sip, her lips and mouth were projected on a huge screen in the background. It took a moment to figure out what was happening, but it was a playful, erotic gesture that worked well with the sensibility of the clothes.
This season, Mr. Chalayan is again using reflective fabrics, mainly a hologram material that he developed for skinny pants. The silver tone has a fantastic depth, and the pants looked best with a spare coat in gray wool and matching silver sneakers. Other coats and tunics in neutral tones had panels of bright orange and green. Many outfits had a slight athletic vibe, but Mr. Chalayan also showed beautifully cut long dresses and several brown leather jackets that had a soft, almost sculptural shape, and no obvious hardware. Such restraint and know-how is difficult to find.
Late last year, while in London, I had lunch with Mr. Chalayan, and he said he sometimes feels like ”a middle child” in the fashion industry. ”In the market right now, it’s either the young designers who get retail support or the really established designers,” he said. ”The ones in between get left out.” He wasn’t complaining, just making an observation. He actually had a pretty good spring sales season, he said, and he is expanding his own e-commerce business. ”The only thing we can rely on is our identity, our customers and reaching more people directly through the Internet,” he said, adding: ”It’s a really good time for me now. I know how I can do things better.”
