Research into Hussien Chalayan

Hussien Chalayan is a British-Cypriot-Turkish Fashion Designer who was born in 1970 in Cyprus. He has won the British Designer of the year award twice and was awarded the MBE in 2006.

In 1993, Chalayan presented the “Tangent Flows”

He believed that clothing, like vehicles and buildings, were externalizations and were meant to be shaped and catered toward the human body that inhibits it. The process of oxidation which occurred during the burial created garments that appeared to be decomposed and rotten, showing earthy stains and a rusty red tone. The ritual of burial and resurrection was said to give the garments a dimension that referenced to life, death and urban decay.

Hussein has the desire to tell stories through clothing by inventing new realities through the use of unconventional technologies and methods of manipulation. "The Tangent Flows" collection consisted of silk garments that had been buried for six weeks, and then exhumed before beginning the show.

Chalayan described his initial interest in this process was because "At the time, I liked the idea that you could look at a garment and tell that it had gone through something or might be the result of an action."