Hushidar Mortezaie | |
---|---|
Born | 1972 (age 51–52)
[1] |
Other names | Hushi Mortezaie |
Education |
University of California, Berkeley, Parsons School of Design, Fashion Institute of Technology |
Occupation(s) | Fashion designer, artist, collage artist, graphic designer |
Known for | Fashion |
Hushidar "Hushi" Mortezaie (born 1972) [2] is an Iranian-born American fashion designer, artist, collagist, and graphic designer. [3] [4] He co-founded the fashion label Michael and Hushi. Mortezaie is best known for his over-the-top Persian-aesthetic collaged textiles and fashion designs, often exploring glamour, politics, and kitsch. [1] [5] He has lived and worked in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Hushidar Mortezaie was born in 1972 in Tehran, Iran. [2] [1] He identifies as queer. [3] In 1975, at the age of 3, due to political reasons his family moved to Marin County in California where he was raised. [1] [6] In 1990, he met Michael Sears while they were both living in San Francisco. [1] He was attending the University of California, Berkeley and studying fine art. [4]
In 1994, Mortezaie moved with Sears to New York City. [1] He attended classes at Parsons School of Design, followed by classes at Fashion Institute of Technology. [7] Mortezaie was mentored and worked as a fashion buyer under Patricia Field. [4] [8]
In 1997, Sears and Mortezaie opened an East Village boutique, Sears and Robot. [9] [10] They made clothes that existed as a hybrid of Western and Middle Eastern fashion. [11] The initial clientele was primarily club kids and celebrities, and this evolved into contemporary fashion, couturier, and runways. [12] [13] The shared the fashion label, Michael and Hushi, and this became the rebranded name of the storefront after pressure from Sears Roebuck. [1] [14] [15] They held a fashion show in the 1990s with models walking down the runway holding machine guns, wearing traditional Iranian chadors. [5] Their fashion was shown on the television series, Sex And The City (season 3, episode 43) with a dress worn by Sarah Jessica Parker; and in the film Fight Club (1999), with a printed shirt worn by Brad Pitt. [7] [15] [12] Michael and Hushi participated in the exhibition of artist hand painted boots, Dr. Martens Original Since 1960 (2003) at a gallery at 537 West 26th Street in New York City. [16] Michael and Hushi fashion pieces are sought after and collected, including by vintage dealer Olivia Haroutounian. [15] [17]
Mortezaie's first art exhibition was in 2009 at the Morono Kiang Gallery in Los Angeles. [18] His art work has been part of notable art exhibitions including Theory of Survival: Fabrications (2014), curated by Taraneh Hemami at Southern Exposure; [19] The Third Muslim (2018), curated by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Yas Ahmed at SOMArts in San Francisco; [3] [20] Occupy Me: Branding Culture, Identity & The Politics of Fashion (2018) at Helen Lindhurst Fine Arts Gallery in Los Angeles; [8] and Ctrl + Alt + Fashion: Manufacturing Iranian Identity (2019) at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. [21] Mortezaie has worked with artist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on the design of performance costumes. [22]