Fashion as art: Bless, Hussein Chalayan, Nina Donis and others

November 12, Dysfashional opens Cycles & Seasons by MasterCard week. Clothing designers Raf Simons, Antonio Marras, Hussein Chalayan, Gaspar Yurkevich, as well as Maison Martin Margiela, Nina Donis and others will perform in a new capacity - as contemporary artists.

Look At Me asked the participants to tell what exactly they were going to show, and the curators asked about where the border between fashion and art actually lies.

"First of all, we wanted to get away from a literal understanding of fashion as a set of things and accessories. Dysfashional suggests that we explore the dysfunctional dimension of fashion, which is most often hidden behind the product itself and its attractive packaging, in a creative way and thoughtful goal setting.

The boundary between fashion and art today is established mainly through the context of the product presentation. The advantage of a gallery or museum can be something that is not visible in the store - a critical look at a work of art. This project was ultimately aimed at bringing together fashion designers and contemporary artists. Unification based on what they and others profess is a non-standard point of view.

The project was presented in four different places. The goal of each Dysfashional exhibition is both to show the overall creative picture of the world, created by famous and successful designers, and to demonstrate the creative processes that reflect the specifics of each city in which the exhibition takes place. Luxembourg is neutral in terms of the fashion scene, it was ideal for the application and positioning of the exhibition. The exhibition in Lausanne turned out to be more focused on photography and graphic design, which is generally characteristic of Switzerland. Paris is known for its original approach to fashion creativity, and Berlin for the underground and experimental scene.

In Moscow, as in all previous cities, we will present two original products, made together with Russian fashion designers, carriers of local specificity, an installation partially inspired by the heritage of the experience of the Suprematists, and a sculpture in which metal aesthetics will meet (or will face) the human body. "

"I had no task to reproduce the performance in the form in which it was presented last year in Paris, at the Center Pompidou. There we organized a show, and on Dysfashional there will be an installation, some extract of the performance, which we did with Nadia Lauro and CocoRosie. We created a unique live performance on the border between opera and folk. According to my idea, the installation in Moscow is an excellent teaser, giving an idea of ​​how emotional the show was in Paris. In addition, the installation used Nadia Lauro stones and for her it was a continuation of her work In both cases, we have a neon cube - the “Cube of Cultures”.

This installation was first presented at Hyères in 2003 at the International Fashion Festival, where singer and producer Dani Siciliano and choreographer Olivier Casameu performed. Also on Dysfashional, I’ll introduce the Peau d'housse project, which I created in collaboration with Françoise Dorleac, which is a cape that has become a chair cover. "

"We are participating in this project, because our interests include not only fashion, but also art in a broad sense. And fashion, fashion design, for us, is primarily art!

We will present an ornament that was invented and used in one of our collections. Ornament we placed in space. We’ll not say anything more: you’ll see everything else at the exhibition in the Garage. "

"I saw Dysfashional a year ago in Paris. The exhibition struck me, and I thought that this must be seen in Moscow. An idea appeared, and then everything began to take shape around it: it met the curators, there were sponsors, a platform - perhaps , the best art institution in the city today.And today we are already seeing a direct implementation of the idea.

It may seem from the outside that it is easy and simple: to conceive and organize an exhibition. But you must understand: this is a gigantic work of many, many people. I like the Europeans' approach to everything, including the principles of work in the art world: if you do something, you have to be a professional. You can't just come from the street and say: “I have money, let's do something interesting,” you will most likely be denied.

To make an exhibition in Europe or to be entrusted to you to do an exhibition, you must first show what you are capable of. We have done more than one project in Europe and in Russia. And Dysfashional, of course, not the last. "

“When the curators offered us to participate in the Dysfashional exhibition, we immediately said that we would prefer to work with the idea of ​​a store, that is, a specific space, rather than an abstract installation. The idea then already existed. And we created the space“ Parasite ”- a mixture of boutique and gallery, which sells objects of artists and designers of the country where the exhibition is taking place. In Luxembourg, we sold all of the objects, largely due to the fact that things were already in the interior, and it was clear to people how their new purchase would look in the apartment.

Unfortunately, the Moscow interior is not represented in Moscow: there was no task to do it. But at the end of November, we were invited to Moscow to work on another project, within the framework of which we will be filming Moscow interiors for the Wallscapes Project. The result you can see and buy next year. "