In 1993, he received a BA honors in Fashion Design from the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London and his graduate collection entitled The Tangent Flows included garments he had buried in his garden, which were exhumed for the show. He established his own fashion line the following year. Chalayan often employs unusual materials and innovative technology to create his designs. Past creations include a coffee table that transforms into a wooden skirt, remote controlled dresses, and a jacket made from Tyvek envelopes, famously worn by singer Björk on the cover of her album Post. His groundbreaking and artistic designs resulted in him representing Turkey at the 51Venice Biennale (2005). He has exhibited his work at the Victoria and Albert Museum (1997), London; Musée du Louvre (1999), Paris; MoMA (2003), New York; Groninger Museum (2005), The Netherlands;Istanbul Modern Art Museum (2010); Museum of Contemporary Art (2010), Tokyo; Musée de la Mode (2011), Paris; and Design Museum (2009, 2016), London. He has won the Absolut Fashion Award (1995); was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire (2006); has received Outstanding Lifetime Achievement to Design Award at the FX International Interior Design Awards (2009), London; and the “Fashion Visionary Award” (2013) for 20 Years of Design Excellence during the Audi Fashion Festival, Singapore. Since 2014, he has been the Head of the Fashion Department at the University of Applied Arts, in Vienna.
