Rad Hourani: 5 Years of Unisex exhibition

Rad Hourani, the talented designer who made fashion history when entering the tight circle of Parisian haute couture with a complete UNISEX collection, is now exhibiting his creative styles and processes at the PHI Centre in Montreal. Hourani will guest curate the exhibition for the whole month of November. For those who have not heard about this captivating designer, it’s time to read on.

Since that first groundbreaking show in Paris Haute Couture Week in July 2012, Hourani has set sail. But what draws his attention to unisex clothing? The young designer has explained: “What I’m really trying to do is erase the masculine and feminine to give people a blank canvas, free of any references, so they have the choice to adopt it the way they want to in their everyday life.”

This month at the PHI Centre, visitors will be taken inside Rad Hourani’s seamless approach and his five years in unisex fashion. It will also draw people into his study of human anatomy, his patterns, his photography and his 20 collections.

The unisex aspect of Hourani’s work is certainly intriguing, and impressive in that he has been the first designer to exhibit a whole collection of unisex clothing. However, it also poses the worry of becoming limited or typecast as a unisex designer. Hourani was previously questioned on this matter and responded: “It will never happen for the simple reason that it’s who I am. I don’t make clothes to fit in a category or to be part of fashion. Fashion usually doesn’t really interest me, what interests me is a style, an object that expresses something. It can be a photograph, a painting, a piece of clothing, a song, basically anything that will canalise my creative energy.”

Hourani’s pop-up shop at the PHI Centre will include a lot of Montreal artists. He wants to focus on showcasing local talents, so there will be work from architect Gilles Saucier, choreographer Edouard Lock, Leela Sun, Renata Morales, Jessica Wee, Pierre Lapointe, Chris Garneau and Mekele, who does his runway music.

The event promises even more than the five years of unisex. A great deal of things have been built for the project such as pieces of clothing, art, books and even Hourani’s personal library has been shipped out to be put on sale over the month.

Michelle McGill

For further information on Rad Hourani visit here.