Chalayan Autumn/Winter 2000

Hussein Chalayan once asked his mother what she would take with her if she had to flee their home. Raised amid displacement, exposed to the experiences of refugees, created at the time by the horrors of the Kosovo War, Chalayan sought to capture this moment with his famous Fall 2000 show, aptly named Afterwords.

Home is where the heart is, the familiarity with the things in our home is what makes us feel comfort when we enter. The chipped paint on the wall, the half-empty bottle of hand sanitizer that's been sitting on your desk for six months, the inkless pen you refuse to throw out, the couch corner you always stub your toe on. To live within your means doesn't simply refer to staying within a budget, it also means to live within the things you should care about. The things in our homes, even as insignificant as they may seem, are always important to us, as without them, we would feel ourselves as empty as our living room when we stop living in it. There are many people in the world today, an unfortunately increasing number, whose experiences reflect the ones experienced by those at the time of this show, whose homes have been destroyed, who cannot find comfort in walls, doors, structure, sitting in a chair, the smell of plastic plants, not even a clump of hair in a drain. For some, all they have are themselves and whatever they can save from destruction, and this show is a somber reminder that you can't save everything.