Not all clothing is fashion, so what makes fashion fashion?
Burka 1996
I was quite challenged when I first saw Burka. I was shocked that a fashion designer would leave a model so exposed. But then I realized that they are wearing garments that are considered the least exposing garments possible, the burka. Chalayan is trying to challenge us on our standards of modesty and socially constructed morals. Our culture tells us that a certain level of modesty must be maintained but how exactly? It can’t be the amount of cloth we are wearing, clearly. I’ve seen bikinis with less material than the mask the final model is wearing which made me consider why we deem certain garment modest and immodest. I find Afterwords quite inventive and fun. He has created both furniture and garments in one piece which would take a great deal of skill and innovation. I think it falls under both fashion and art, as it pushes the boundaries yet also require a high level of sewing design and skill. Burka is not so much fashion as it is making a statement and challenging society norms.
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?
The Level Tunnel 2006
While the fact that it is an extraordinary piece of art doesn’t change, the creator’s relationship and the viewer’s relationship to it do change. The creator’s approach to it would be entirely different because he would be fulfilling a requirement rather than creating something all his own. The viewer’s approach is entirely changed because you know that the company wants something from you and I imagine it would taint your enjoyment of it as an art piece.
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?
Absent Presence appears to be inspired by humanism as it focuses on identity and human biology.
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?
Echoform 1999
It is nearly impossible for an artist to fully create their own work. Even painters buy their paints ready-made. It certainly adds to the impressiveness of a work if it was created all the artists but the creating isn’t the important part, it is the idea. If the artist had the idea it become their intellectual property and is credited to them no matter how much they personally crafted.
http://ilikecatsmorethanpeople.blogspot.com/2010/11/hussein-chalayan-burka-1996.html http://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2009/hussein-chalayan
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