From wooden tables that transform into skirts, to solar-paneled bathing suits, Hussein Chalayan has incorporated technology into fashion design throughout his quarter-century career, pushing the boundaries of every discipline he investigates.

Now, the fruits of the Cypriot designer’s efforts are on show at Istanbul’s Museum of Modern Art, fittingly in time for that city’s international fashion week.

Included are some of Chalayan’s most memorable pieces: rust-riven garments from his Central St. Martin’s graduate collection, windswept molded frocks from the Inertia collection, and perhaps most astonishingly, animatronic dresses that transform in response to certain sounds.

The exhibition describes how Chalayan’s designs serve as physical evidence and realizations of theoretical investigations in other fields. And the results, whether the product of explorations into architecture, philosophy, anthropology or the sciences, are rapturous.

Hussein Chalayan: 1994-2010 is on show at the Istanbul Modern until 24 October 2010