Last Updated: 10:00AM GMT 22 Jan 2009  Hussein Chalayan's amorphous, almost architectural dresses hang in the world's most exclusive boutiques, but he finds his inspiration in fields as diverse as automotive design, religious identity and DNA sequencing.  Tomorrow, an exhibition showcasing what the 38-year-old British Cypriot calls his "most monumental pieces" opens at London's Design Museum. From Fashion And Back will offer not only a chance to see Chalayan's daring dresses up close – but also a rare insight into his unusual creative process.  "I've made a super-tight selection of my work," says Chalayan, "so the exhibition is like a jewel box." Each of the 37 outfits on display is accompanied by the ideas that inspired it, ranging from architecture and design to film and sculpture. "It is truly cross-disciplinary, and intentionally stripped down to really show off the aspects that people don't normally get to see."  Named British Designer of the Year twice (in 1999 and 2000) and awarded the MBE in 2006, Chalayan has consistently shocked, surprised, bedazzled and, more than once, baffled audiences at his meticulously orchestrated shows, which are more like plays, installations or tableaux vivants than traditional catwalk presentations. His inventiveness and arresting use of the surreal question the very function of fashion. But the upshot is design statements that are both poetic, and often technically astounding.  For example, his "fashion as furniture" autumn/winter 2000 collection, Afterwords, saw models emerging from pieces of modernist furniture, chairs and tables which appeared to mutate magically into dresses. For Chalayan, it was a commentary on transience and shifting peoples whose belongings and homes, whether for religious or economic reasons, are constantly in a state of flux. As a Turkish Cypriot who came to Britain to study at the age of 15, the subject is a constant inspiration – likewise the mixture of cultures in London that stirs such creativity. "There is no other city like it," he says.  He finds technology equally fascinating. In 2000, he created a remote-controlled dress made from aviation-strength fibreglass, with panels that gracefully lift at the flick of a switch to reveal gently gathered tulle petticoats. His autumn/winter collection for 2007, entitled Airborne, incorporated a dress embedded with Swarovski crystals illuminated by thousands of flickering LED lights.  Along with his near-contemporaries Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney, Chalayan has been a bright light of a bullishly creative generation for more than 15 years. His graduation collection, shown at Central St Martins in 1993 – a selection of diaphanous silk bias cut gowns that he buried in his back garden with iron filings in order to chart the process of decay – ended up on display in the window of Browns in South Molton Street.  But it is his ability to have one eye on the avant garde and the other on the accounts that has kept him in business. For the past few years, Chalayan has shown his collections in Paris, but his operation remains London-based.  "Certain periods of my career I'm prouder of than others, but I've learnt something from each collection, and one has always enriched the next," he says. "But a lot of the time that evaluation, and I am a harsh self-critic, is about the whole picture – not just the show but the sales and the sell-through on the shop floor."  Asymmetry, intricate layering and tailoring, subversive prints and a quiet elegance are all part of the lexicon of his mainline and diffusion lines. "The most exciting experience for me is when I see people wearing my things, and the shop environment when customers first start to engage with the work, and try it on," he says.  His most recent collection, spring/summer 2009, titled Inertia, featured aerodynamic strapless gowns made out of foam rubber that look as if they have been photographed in a speed tunnel, with material rippling out of the back. The effect was hallucinatory; they looked like a car crash – all buckled metal, cracked windscreens and bent bumpers.  "I was interested in how the speed of our lives was accelerating to such a degree," he says, "and how the quality of our lives was plummeting: travelling, working and running around like nutters. I felt we were heading for a crash. It has, of course, a certain resonance now."  But beyond these statement pieces he also makes fluttery, stripy T-dresses and cutaway jersey tube dresses carrying an abstracted crash print – chic, sensual ready-to-wear that is in tune with skin-bareing spring/summer trends. Working out of a studio employing 20 in Clerkenwell, east London, a year ago, Chalayan signed an investment deal with Puma, the sportswear label owned by PPR, the conglomerate behind the McQueen and Gucci brands. Chalayan is employed as creative director of its sports fashion division, and his company, in turn, benefits from the manufacturing and infrastructure of this huge group.  "Had it been a company like Givenchy, which is closer to what I am doing, I would have found that difficult. But Puma is a sports lifestyle brand and it also invests a lot in technology and I find that research interesting. One of my roles is to give the apparel more identity."  Chalayan's home life is spent in a loft-like space and enjoying the simpler things in life – such as pubs and walks. For all the gravitas of this work, he remains affable with a great sense of humour and in touch with the regular frustrations in life. "I still have not found a sofa," he laughs, "and it is driving me insane trying to find something which is both comfortable and good looking." It's a mission with which many will empathise.
Conceptual designer Hussein Chalayan tells Harriet Quick how a new exhibition    will lay bare the ideas behind his mind-boggling creations.