- [Hamish] When we were in the studio,
I said to Hussein,
"what is this furniture doing in here?".
And he went, "that's a dress".
And I said, "get out of here".
- [Hussein] I'm Hussein Chalayan,
and this is my autumn/winter 2000 collection
called After Words.
[dance music]
- [Hamish] I remember Anna Wintour
coming to the London shows one season,
and she said, "who should I be seeing
of the young designers?".
And on the list was Hussein Chalayan.
From the beginning,
this was clearly a very singular voice:
very, very unique perspective.
Hussein's Turkish Cypriot
and he grew up with a lot of violence
and an impending sense of dystopia.
That was also woven into the fabric of his clothes
in this really fascinating, compelling way.
- [Hussein] In Cyprus, there was the inter-communal war
that started in the sixties.
And I remember asking my mother, like,
"what would be the first thing
you would want to take with you
when you know that your neighborhood will be raided?".
And she said to me,
it will be my old photographs,
it would be a blanket,
and maybe my favorite clothes.
And then that was something that stayed with me,
but I wanted to turn this kind of,
let's say, horrific situation into a performance.
[woman vocalizing]
The show starts off with a family that's sitting down.
And then I just wanted the family to be there
because this can happen to any family.
- [Hamish] Again, this was very autobiographical,
and I think there was a sense,
a remembered childhood moment
when there was a threat of imminent attack.
- [Eugene] At the beginning of the show,
there was this real family of people.
They weren't models.
Well, I just need them to look real.
We literally,
we just left them
and kept them as real as possible.
- [Hamish] You know, the show opened
and you had this room set
with sixties, artsy, suburbia furniture.
- [Hussein] People probably thought
it was just, kind of, decoration
or it was just there as an idea.
But actually,
that eventually those objects would be something
that the models would engage with.
- [Alexandre] I proposed to Hussein
to design a language for his fashion shows onward.
I proposed that the music would be always directed by,
of course, inspiration of his collection.
- [Hussein] That [unclear] Bulgarian folk singers.
[Bulgarian folk music]
- Very haunting, kind of acapella sounds
that these women were producing,
which already, of course, set the scene
in this rather dramatic way.
- [Hussein] Then it will start with this line
that continued throughout the layers.
I wanted to look at how you can create this optic effect
with depth and the line at the same time
- [Laird] With the use of piping,
and volume, and pleating,
he creates a surrealist and more of a luminous take.
- [Hamish] Dresses that were sort of deceptively simple,
but actually were constructed with all these kinds of folds
and integral pleats,
almost like origami
or like you're making a child's airplane
out of folded newspaper.
- [Eugene] When I saw the collection,
I saw some really, very strong shapes
and I kind of saw this idea
that was a two dimensional shape becoming three dimensional.
And that was my source of inspiration for the hair
for the Hussein show.
- [Hussein] And the makeup was also quite remarkable,
were these kind of clear shaped plastic add-ons.
And I think this idea really came from making them look
a bit more East European
and the makeup was done by Pat McGrath.
- [Hamish] There was this amazing sculptural dress
that seemed to have been carved
from very, very tightly gathered tulle.
Was this wonderful silhouette
that looked almost like clipped topiary.
- [Erika] It's like wearing a feather,
but it was also very big.
So I remember that I had a little bit of a problem
relaxing my arms,
'cause I didn't know where to put them.
- [Eugene] When I saw the blue dress in the collection,
I remember seeing it, just thinking
"that's really exquisite
and I've never, ever seen anything like that before".
This idea kind of fell into place
that what I wanted to do
was I wanted to have this texture in the hair
and just kind of carve these two dimensional
and three dimensional shapes into it.
- [Laird] This is a look that goes into a museum,
is exhibited,
is talked about,
is remembered.
And look at the look next to it,
is something that you can wear.
So, it's even more admirable
that he can apply his skills to things
that are extreme
and to make something special out of something
that's ordinary, like a shift dress.
- [Hussein] And then these gloves,
which are part of the garments themselves,
that are actually pockets at the same time.
They came as sheepskin coats.
- [Alexandre] Devon could give a different allure
and meaning to any creative idea.
Gimmicky, she would take the gimmick off.
She would add the edge on.
- [Hussein] So the whole idea behind this collection
and show was about displacement.
But I can't rationalize every single thing for you
in such a way that is connected to the main theme,
because it's more of a feeling you create.
But you have to stick to the language of clothes as well,
that you've developed.
So you combine the ambiance
of what you're trying to do
with your language of clothing.
These three black dresses are supposed to be
the bad omen in a way.
They're like, kind of, almost three black birds.
So actually, it was supposed to be the omen
before the Exodus, so to speak.
- [Hamish] At the end of the show,
four girls came on
this sort of suburban splay leg chairs that we had seen.
It had gray slip covers.
They started turning the slip covers inside out
and unzipping elements of them.
And you realize that actually,
these slip covers
that had been perfectly tailored to fit
these very geometric chairs,
were dresses.
- [Hussein] It was quite technical.
Of course, the clothes that were hidden as chair covers,
that was a very long process of trial and error
because whatever fits the body
wouldn't fit the chair automatically.
So you have to go back and forth
until it was right.
I remember it being quite challenging,
but also very satisfying.
- [Erika] In a matter of, I don't know, the 30 seconds,
we had turned our whole living room
into ways that we can take it with us.
- [Hamish] And through, you know,
these kind of fascinating devices
of panels that fold and unbuttoned,
and then buttoned up,
and ended up with these
four amazingly chic dresses
that had come out of four slip covers.
And it was really electrifying.
I think there was a kind of moment of spontaneous applause
in the audience.
[crowd applauds]
You must remember that this was a period
when people were sitting there with their notebooks
and pencils and not distracted
by trying to capture the moment on their iPhones.
So, their hands were freed up to applaud.
That would have been a sensational finale in itself.
And then Natalia Semanova came in
and she was wearing a gray skirt
and an asymmetric bodice.
And she lifted out a central circular panel
right in the middle of the coffee table.
And she gingerly stepped inside the coffee table.
Which was just about,
the opening was just about wide enough
to contain her narrow skirts and legs,
and that she'd pulled them up
and they unfurled
to create this kind of extraordinary,
sculptural, A-line, wooden [unclear].
It was certainly unlike any other garment
I'd ever seen on a runway.
- [Hussein] I think the biggest trick here was the weight.
The model had to be able to lift it up
and you had to be able to walk in it.
And the other trick was the legs
had to flip up.
They were a spring loaded.
So, as soon as the model picked it up,
they just flipped back in.
I really thought so many things could go wrong
during the show
because the models maybe wouldn't get the process right.
But luckily, everything went as planned.
- [Erika] That was a complete surprise to us, as well.
We weren't told much
and I think that was for a reason.
- [Eugene] That was real mind blowing.
I know that no one was actually expecting
something like that to happen.
And that was always something
that Hussein really loved.
- [Alexandre] We helped make possible,
dreaming of a show in a different format.
- [Eugene] It was about immersing yourself
in this experience
and allowing yourself the time to dream
and be taken to a place that you'd never been to before.
- [Hussein] Somehow the show got more appreciated,
in time.
For fashion, what it's done is that it shows
that you can challenge the board of the fashion,
I guess.
This show definitely contributed
to how fashion can be pursued and perceived.
[crowd applauds]
[dance music]