above: Wallpaper Magazine's limited edition lenticular cover (detail)Now some of you may not know the word "lenticular' but you know what it is. It's multiple images printed on a special type of material that allows the image to 'move' when you tilt it. Some people call them Flickers, some call them Motion cards, but whatever you call it, it's the coolest magazine cover I have ever seen. Because I'm a suscriber, this was a pleasant surprise in my mailbox. But you won't find it on the newsstands, you'll have to order one of these from Wallpaper* if they have any left.Wallpaper* March 2007 limited edition covertext from the magazine:Hussein Chalayan designs fashion about fashion which often looks nothing like most other fashion. And he experiments, in the most radical way, with form and material. All of which has given him a reputation as a somewhat difficult designer.His collection for spring/summer 2007, though, brings together all of Chalayan’s passions and preoccupations – fashion as social fabric, formal experimentation – and makes them magical and mechanical, a steam-punk fantasy, shifting history and architecture.The show was called 111 (the accumulated annum, as it happens, of show sponsor and collaborator, Swarovski), and was an elegantly executed and perfectly pulled off flip through 111 years of fashion’s back pages. Chalayan is now a designer of the cleverest but lightest and prettiest little dresses around. But while the main procession was more than a pleasure, the real jaw droppers were the five outfits that closed the show.The first, a prim, high-necked Victorian corset dress which automatically opened itself, hitched up its hems, nipped and tucked and emerged slim, modern and flapperish. The dress above starts its pupation full and Forties, then balloons, deflates, flips, rises and comes to rest as a retro-futurist Paco Rabanne tribute shift. Meanwhile the hat morphs and moulds it self into bold new shapes. There followed amazing twitching and trickery, necklines unplunged and the show-stopping outfit retreated into a hat, leaving only a puff of crystal dust and a boldy bare-naked model. (There was something unsettlingly sexy about the styling and unveiling by hidden hands).But if this was history as a magic show, it was also a look into the future and the further integration of gearing and wardrobe, wiring and evening wear. This is what we wore worn in ways we are only starting to imagine.The March limited edition cover features Hussein Chalayan’s mechanical dress in spectacular lenticular action. To purchase a copy, call 44.1733 385170, while stocks last. The cover is also available to subscribers, so to ensure you do not miss out on future limited edition covers, subscribe by clicking here.
