“I’m a very curious person,” said Hussein Chalayan backstage. He’s right about that, in both senses. For only an inquiring mind—and a very particular attitude—could have formulated the fabulous coup de théâtre at the heart of this morning’s Chalayan presentation.
Upon entering the show space, two models could be seen wearing white paper dresses with military detailing, standing in some kind of glassless vitrine. The audience checked them out, then blanked them out: They weren’t doing much, just standing there. The show proceeded. As soon as the first bespoke cigar-holder pocket at the chest of an olive green military-style skirt-dress appeared, it became apparent this was an extension of Chalayan’s most recent Cuban-themed menswear collection. And, indeed, there were some looks from that outing sprinkled among the plissé skirts that were printed with abstracted pie charts from the CIA Factbook on Cuba, the cute Plonk cartoon character Chalayan found in the British Library and transported to his muse nation, and the neutral-toned dancer-and-trumpeter brocade. For some reason the soundtrack was a medley of a woman moaning in suggestive ecstasy and the Knight Rider theme song: unlikely bedfellows. The clothes were precise and complicated and sometimes very beautiful. Each model wore rope-tied shoes whose heel was an on-its-side cylinder—one of these heels detached early in the show and rolled forlornly to a halt as its wearer walked on.
Then came the splash. Those two paper-dress-wearing models tensed. Two hidden showerheads above them suddenly gushed forth. And—whoa!—the paper dresses literally melted away as the water doused them, revealing crystal-flashed, palm-pattern party dresses beneath. It was amazing to watch. The models, one of them shivering, walked the runway and left a slick of water behind them.
Afterward, the very curious Mr. Chalayan explained the sleight of dress thusly: “That was to represent the transformation of a militant kind of situation [in Cuba] to a more playful one. I liked the idea of using water. Because, of course, Cuba, there’s a sea. So I thought how could I fuse these ideas together. And I liked the idea of a garment that could melt and reveal something else underneath. And it was, of course, crystal embellished because our sponsor was Swarovski. So we had these dancing palm trees, and the crystals were their coconuts. It was a real challenge, to be honest. A lot of back and forth. Girls slipping, as you saw, and heels breaking, but who cares? I like taking risks.” Original, curious, and intelligent, Chalayan is a designer to cherish.
