Chalayan’s creative pursuits go beyond fashion into film, installations, and sculpture, often addressing themes of cultural identity, migration, technology, and the natural world. In 2005, he represented Turkey at the 51st Venice Biennale with his film Absent Presence and was the subject of numerous international exhibitions.
Throughout his career, Chalayan has engaged in a wide range of collaborations, working with talents like Tilda Swinton, Nick Knight, Anohni Hegarty, and choreographer Michael Clark for the 1998 production current/SEE. His designs have also appeared on stage, such as the performance In the Spirit of Diaghilev at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Pascal Dusapin’s opera Passion, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Così fan tutte, in which he collaborated with Zaha Hadid on set design. He received an MBE in 2006 and became Creative Director of Puma in 2008. Rizzoli published a monograph on Chalayan’s work in 2011, the same year he also launched the fragrance Airborne with Comme des Garçons. Named one of the 100 Fashion Icons by Time Magazine in 2012, he was appointed head of the Fashion Department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2014. In 2015, Chalayan opened his first flagship store in London and premiered his dance performance Gravity Fatigue at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Recognized as a top fashion influencer by Wallpaper* magazine in 2017, he received the London Design Medal in 2018 for his international impact.
Chalayan’s exhibition Archipelago at Shanghai’s Power Station of Art ran from 2021 to 2022, followed by his solo show Souffleur (Prompters) at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Istanbul in 2022. In March 2024, Chalayan held his first drawing exhibition at Pilevneli Gallery in Istanbul, followed by his first lifestyle collection launch for Zeyrek Çinili Hamam in Istanbul in April. Chalayan holds a Professorship focused on Innovation and Sustainability at the Fashion Department at HTW Berlin, which started in 2019.
As a mentor, Chalayan is seeking applicants who are interested in exploring paths to new self-awareness that challenge the current world order. “In working with mentees, I would like to guide them to explore a ‘New Anthropology’ that dissects today’s shifting identities and reconnects us to a more cohesive self-awareness amid pervasive societal changes.” The mentee should be prepared to look at their project from multidimensional angles that resist simple categorization. “My role will be to support them in distilling their ideas and pushing the boundaries of their practice—not to drive toward a single result but to create space for discovery and self-reflection. We will explore every theme with openness, acknowledging the complexity of each, and encouraging a dialogue with the contemporary world’s many challenges and nuances.”
chalayan.com
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