Twelve pieces including patchwork denim, jersey, and leather, a thousand-copy book, and a campaign set at London&#39;s V&amp;A East Storehouse. Jonny Johansson brings to light the Cypriot designer who transformed the dress into a monument.

In 1993, <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/fashion/hussein-chalayan-stilista-storia-moda-sfilate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hussein Chalayan</a> buried the pieces from his graduate collection in a garden, soaked in iron filings, only to exhume them weeks later, marked by rust and time. More than thirty years later, Acne Studios is delving into his archive. The result is a twelve-piece capsule collection in denim, jersey, and leather that brings together two generations of experimenters and demonstrates that certain ideas, unlike clothes, never expire. The starting point for the Acne Studios Hussein Chalayan capsule collection is the early 2000s, when the Turkish-Cypriot designer, born in Nicosia and educated in London, turned the catwalk into a place of thought: clothes that became furniture, garments permeated by technology, garments conceived as works of art, others as &quot;monuments&quot; to narrate uprooting, memory, and the passage of time. From historic collections such as Ventriloquy (2001), Medea (2002), and Manifest Destiny (2003), the Swedish fashion house draws its own exotic vocabulary, translating it into the materials that define it.

Denim thus becomes a building block in the capsule collection. The patchwork jeans reference the &quot;1996&quot; and &quot;2009&quot; silhouettes, iconic models of the house, and coexist with a new twisted model in a trompe-l&#39;oeil python print and a shirt in the same fabric. The asymmetrical vest and dress recall the layering of Manifest Destiny, a technique that continues in the T-shirts and jersey vests, while the Camero bag is reborn in patchwork leather in denim tones. For <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/moda/acne-studios-storia-del-marchio-stilista-jonny-johansson-stilista" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jonny Johansson</a> , co-founder and creative director of the brand founded in Stockholm in 1997, it&#39;s an act of devotion rather than a marketing one. &quot;I&#39;ve always found Hussein&#39;s work incredible,&quot; says the Swedish designer. &quot;He had a huge impact on fashion, and I wanted to bring it back to life. It&#39;s a special feeling to work with someone you admire: all you can do is let them express themselves. We share the idea that design and creativity should always come first.&quot;

Hussein Chalayan , for his part, describes a different perspective: &quot; I particularly enjoyed working with Jonny on the denim portion of the collection. The Acne Studios team is from a different generation, which allowed them to offer a fresh perspective on my creative language, which I found inspiring. It made me look at my past work in a different light. At the same time, it reminded me that much of what we did back then had a timeless quality. Seeing my work reinterpreted made me realize that some ideas can continue to resonate and evolve beyond their original context.&quot;

The campaign for the Acne Studios Hussein Chalayan collection was photographed at the V&amp;A East Storehouse in London , the museum-warehouse designed by DS+R where the public comes into direct contact with the institution&#39;s archive and where several of Chalayan&#39;s pieces are part of the permanent collection. Here, the capsule collection appears alongside memorable creations such as the 2011 Tulle Dress, commissioned by the museum for British Design 1948–2012, and the Haiku Dress from the Sakoko SS11 collection. The launch is accompanied by the volume &quot; Reference: Hussein Chalayan &quot;, published by Acne Studios in a print run of one thousand copies and edited by Charlene Prempeh , featuring archival illustrations, photographs, and texts. The curator defines the book as &quot;a regenerative circle of creativity.&quot; This capsule collection exudes a profound method. Denim, by nature, wears and wears, and it&#39;s precisely this vocation for time that makes it the ideal material to reopen an archive like Chalayan&#39;s, which has always treated it as a raw material. Johansson doesn&#39;t make it a display case homage; she lets those ideas recirculate, even more wearable. Which, after all, is the best way to know if an idea is truly timeless.

The Acne Studios Hussein Chalayan capsule collection will be available online at the official Acne Studios website and in select stores worldwide, including Sanlitun in Beijing, IAPM in Shanghai, Tokyo Aoyama, Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, Dover Street in London, Greene Street in New York and West Hollywood in Los Angeles.

Acne Studios Hussein Chalayan: The year's most experimental denim comes from the museum

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