It takes immense brevity to disengage a long-embedded cultural taboo about a particular society and expose it in its unashamed nudity. The designer Hussein Chalayan takes on such a challenge and creates a cultural disorder in the fashion world in 1998.

The collection is called Between, and it stands in-between the East and the West, in-between what is accepted and what isn’t, unravelled by motifs from Muslim dress codes.

The designer is known for his avant-garde statements that bend shape, form and medium in the history of fashion: the “table dress”, the “transformer dress”, the “video dress”. Incorporating smart technological wizardry and idiosyncratic envisioning, the Turkish-British designer strikes us with his ability to always disclose a well-thought-out cultural message through his collections.

The concept that Chalayan draws upon in his Spring/Summer 1998 collection is that of the “Other”, or also known as “Orientalism”. The designs are very clean and monochromatic, with the emphasis being on the exposure of the models’ naked body. Their heads are roofed with opaque wooden pods and plastic squares. According to Chalayan, this choice “was about defining your space structurally and graphically. It wasn’t really supposed to be offensive. It was supposed to illustrate a particular kind of position. This was about the cultural loss of self.”

The most remarkable moment in the Between fashion show is when four models appear on the runway in a methodical sequence. The first one is wearing a cover for her eyes and half of the face, but her body is completely naked; the second one is veiled up to her belly bottom; the third one up to her knees; and the last one is wearing a chador. They are standing still next to each other, letting the background orchestral music and the audience’s soundful reactions of stupefaction transport the fashion statement’s ambiguous meaning.

Constance C. R. White, in a feature for The New York Times, interprets this scene in the following way: “a provocative exploration of Islamic women’s place in society using the chador as the fulcrum”. Vogue’s editors Nicole Phelps and Laird Borelii-Perrson assert: “He was at his unorthodox best for Spring 1998, when his Between collection took an unflinching look at the status of Muslim women and how something as simple as a hemline could connote so much meaning”.

Hussein Chalayan talks about the show: “This was a moment when I felt so alive”. His ability to bring the East and the West together, defying what “Orientalism” stands for and undressing our society is remarkable. Chalayan’s Between fashion show has set the tone not only for transformative fashion but also for an open exploration of the submergences of cultures in various contexts.