But there should be an exploration of attitudes and emotions. It is very nice when you can let an idea run.'' For a designer to use fashion as a laboratory is no novelty. And 35 years before Dior's bourgeois clients were scandalized by the abstract constructs, Paco Rabanne had built a career on his 1960s ''manifesto'' collection of ''Twelve Unwearable Dresses'' made of riveted plastic, metal and paper. When designers push the limits of their craft, the results can generate scorn, derision or even rage from people who consider it decadent or just plain ridiculous to create clothes that can't be worn. Yet Chalayan says that designers cannot necessarily claim to be artists.
Fashion comes from an industrial process, but so now does a lot of art.