Hussein Chalayan
b. 1970
Chalayan was born to Muslim parents and attended Turk Maarif Koleji (“Turkish Education College”) in Cyprus. In 1978 he moved to England with his family, and in 1982 they began living in London. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, in 1993, he established his own independent design label and his own company, Cartesia Ltd. (1994). Chalayan’s big break came soon thereafter, when a collection that he developed was presented during London Fashion Week. The 2000 autumn-winter ready-to-wear show staged by Chalayan at Sadler’s Wells, a London dance theatre, was such a critical hit that it propelled him to be designated British Designer of the Year—for the second consecutive year—by the British Fashion Council. The audience compared his presentation with performance art. Chalayan’s stage set consisted of modernist furniture—just four chairs and a circular coffee table set up at the foot of his catwalk. Throughout the show, models wearing his signature elegant, skillfully designed ensembles—floral-sprigged tops and skirts and black coats made of layered fabric and edged in white—moved by those pieces of furniture. At the…
Films