Hussein Chalayan's intellectual take on fashion inspires fans

It would be a crime to pigeonhole Hussein Chalayan. Best known for fashion design, the two-time British Designer of the Year has also had his works displayed at prestigious art museums, and his avant-garde catwalks are often dubbed performing art shows in their own league.

The boundary-breaking creative mastermind has made forays into various creative aspects, from art to architecture to film and theatre. Known as one of the industry's most intellectual designers, Chalayan has debuted short films at the Venice Biennale, and his retrospective exhibitions have been staged at museums across the globe.

After earning a fashion design degree from London's Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (close to the time when the other two celebrated British designers, Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen, graduated), Chalayan started his own label in 1993 and has since come a long way.

His graduation collection, titled "The Tangent Flows", which featured oxidised silk dresses buried underneath a friend's garden for months, was such a hit that influential buyer store Browns bought the entire collection.

Following the hit debut, Chalayan's intellectual approach to fashion continues to inspire. His experimental showpieces include the famous "coffee table dress" - a mahogany coffee table that morphs into a geometrical skirt - and the futuristic "womb" Lady Gaga broke out from at the Grammys in 2011. This theme of transformation has been revisited by the designer. His autumn/winter 2000 collection featured garments that doubled as sofa covers. Instead of trotting down the runway, Chalayan's models interacted with furniture on stage.

His 2007 spring/summer series took transformation to another level. The entire collection conceptualised around the theme sent models trotting off the runway in outfits featuring built-in mechanisms which transformed floor-length Victorian gowns into 1920s flappers.

It's not just showmanship that won Chalayan accolades as one of the world's best fashion maestros, but his ability to combine spectacular optical effects and commerce in fashion. "The [showpieces] do have a role but, more importantly, they turn into wearable clothes which actually took the most time to construct," he says.

Last year was an especially productive one for Chalayan. Alongside his own eponymous label, he took on a lot of responsibility, including designing French fashion house Vionnet's demi-couture collection, relaunching Chalayan menswear after an eight-year break, and collaborating with famous architect Zaha Hadid to design costumes for the opera Cosi Fan Tutte which opened in May in Los Angeles. The production has made possible other high-profile creative collaborations such as Frank Gehry with Rodarte and Jean Nouvel with Azzedine Alaia.

The disciplines may vary, yet the core of Chalayan's design philosophy remains the same. "They are part of the same world," he says. "Other projects help me discover new ideas that end up [inspiring] new collections."