Because you can't have depths without surfaces.
Linda Grant, thinking about clothes, books and other matters.
Pure Collection Ltd.
Net-a-porter UK

Tuesday 27 January 2009

Hussein Chalayan at the Design Museum


I went to the Hussein Chalayan show at the Design Museum last week, as part of a repetore of five arts related openings for the BBC's saturday review show. It helped ameliorate the rage of watching Tom Cruise cast as a Nazi in Valkyrie (great story, shame about the casting, script and direction) . My fellow panellists agreed that the Chalayan show was a blast of fresh air from the future. Indeed it was a futuristic show.

Chalayan says his influences are migration, that sort of thing, not making beautiful frocks for averagely endowed women. He's really an installation/performance artist. Yet once you have gawped at the dress with lasers, you can't help but notice that he also produces lovely wearable clothes.



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Er, Linda, you are missing a W! (ww. should be www. your Hussein Chalayan Design Museum link doesn't work as a result). Looks lovely, as indeed do his designs for real people. Will look forward to reading more about him.

Also will be given Valkyrie a pass, as Cruise seems dreadfully miscast as an aristocratic German officer (not a Nazi) plotting against Hitler. Remember how jarring the casting of John Cusack, a far better actor, was as Max Rothman in the film "Max", about the nasty Austrian fellow before he came to power.

Linda Grant said...

Fixed.

NancyDaQ said...

I can't give Cruise a pass on Valkyrie, since the casting was his idea.

Anonymous said...

A silly Valkyrie story:

In the mid 60s, my mom & other American Army officer's wives were invited to lunch with Stauffenberg's widow, who was very nice & showed them around the castles and told them about her husband.

On the way home one of the ladies said: Why, he was better looking than David Niven!