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  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    Helmut Lang



    I was just wondering what Helmut is up to. I now there is something cooking, but his PR person I know refused to say anything saying his head would be chopped off. So I googled Helmut today, and I found this strange bit of news from fashionwiredaily.com Hmm, I'd rather Helmut do some clothes instead, because I used to like many of his designs, and I think that he went out amidst his apex.

    Helmut Lang Speaks, or at Least Draws and Defines




    Godfrey Deeny

    September 14th, 2006 @ 11:39 AM - New York

    Helmut Lang, the recent great recluse of fashion, has finally made something of a statement, even if it’s a largely visual one.



    Lang contributed a 10-page story to the latest edition of hipster
    Berlin fashion magazine Achtung, which hits newsstands this week.



    Entitled “Helmut Lang Excerpts from the Long Island Diaries”; the
    article is about one of Lang’s pet obsessions, German and Austrian
    noble family crests.



    The designer has an avid collection the seals of noble Teutonic
    houses, and these form the basis of the feature. Everyone from Von
    Uslar, whose scion Moritz is German’s hottest young journalist, to Von
    Clausewitz - historians among you will be familiar with his famous
    dictum on war, that it was the extension of politics by other means.



    “I am not sure what to make of this,” confesses Achtung
    Editor-in-Chief Markus Ebner. “But I love its ambiguity and the way it
    looks.”


    Though a modernist revolutionary designer, Lang was always noted
    for his adherence to traditionalist gentlemanly etiquette. In this rare
    pronouncement since his 2004 resignation from the fashion house he
    created, Lang drummed up a didactic text that is essentially a series
    of dictionary definitions of hierarchy.



    The designer begins his intro with the meaning of pecking order.
    For the record it’s “a hierarchy of status among members of a group of
    people or animals, originally observed among hens.” Quand meme.


    He then lists ten connotations for order and ends humorously with
    the gist of count, “For the Muppet character, see Count von Count.”



    Lang sent the mag some rough mechanical sketches of his own arcane
    sense of hierarchy and several grey background photos of the red noble
    seals.



    Even by the standards of émigré politics and habitudes, his is a novel exile by any standards. Then again, so was his fashion.




    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine
  • casem
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2006
    • 2590

    #2
    Re: Helmut Lang

    This makes me happy to hear he's up to something. I would be sooo happy if he would start making clothes again, say by next f/w. I still miss not seeing a Helmut Lang collection each season (with NY fashion week just finishing). Some of my favorite clothes are HL, definitely the best fitting button ups I have. A little piece of me dies when I think of Theory's Helmut Lang...

    Oh, and this is my first post on here, so a quick introduction: I've been posting on men.style for awhile and reading The Fashion Spot, but didn't try to sign up until they closed it to new people. Some of my favorite brands are Helmut Lang, Dior, Cloak and Jil Sander. I hope to be going to NYU in their second semester to get my master's in music composition. Hello everybody!
    music

    Comment

    • Faust
      kitsch killer
      • Sep 2006
      • 37852

      #3
      Re: Helmut Lang

      [quote user="casem83"]This makes me happy to hear he's up to something. I would be sooo happy if he would start making clothes again, say by next f/w. I still miss not seeing a Helmut Lang collection each season (with NY fashion week just finishing). Some of my favorite clothes are HL, definitely the best fitting button ups I have. A little piece of me dies when I think of Theory's Helmut Lang...

      Oh, and this is my first post on here, so a quick introduction: I've been posting on men.style for awhile and reading The Fashion Spot, but didn't try to sign up until they closed it to new people. Some of my favorite brands are Helmut Lang, Dior, Cloak and Jil Sander. I hope to be going to NYU in their second semester to get my master's in music composition. Hello everybody!


      [/quote]





      Hello and welcome! You seem like a quality contributor right off the bat. May I ask how you found out about the site?



      I agree with you about Helmut. Fashion is not the same without him, there is a whole direction of minimalism with a twist is missing. He was more interesting than Jil, more agressive than Margiela, and slicker than Ann Dem. He definitely had a place on the style spectrum that noone else has filled. I think Narcisco Rodriguez is trying something like that with menswear, but it's not the same, too boring. Hedi did something similar, but that's history now too. And he always has done the best accessories.

      Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

      StyleZeitgeist Magazine

      Comment

      • casem
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2006
        • 2590

        #4
        Re: Helmut Lang

        Thanks Faust! It looks like you've got a nice set up here with some great people that like to actually discuss fashion and art. I found the forum through your blog, which I found from reading the fashion spot.
        I totally agree with where you place Helmut among other designers. I really like Ann D. (I gather there are lots of fans here) but I like the more tailored, structured look that Helmut did, I just can't shell out for something that doesn't look very clean and sharp. On the other hand, I love the precision of Dior Homme, but the stuff can be a bit too trendy/obvious. Many of my Helmut Lang clothes are fairly basic, but they are some of my favorites, like my favorite button up is HL, favorite sneakers are white HL etc.

        I also love Helmut's approach to fashion, always looking to the future without reference, but at the same time not changing things so much that they become over the top and unwearable. As a composer my philosphy is very similar. I'm always on the hunt for what's new and modern, where the next musical frontier is. At the same time I have a bit of a commercial sensibilty in that I still want my music to be beautiful and accessible for the average Joe to listen to and appreciate.
        I also think it's great that Helmut, in his unfailing modernism, would never admit to references in his collections. If an interviewer would say "this looks like bondage" "this looks like punk" etc. he would deny it. Of course it's impossible to create anything without reference, we're all influenced by our surrondings and the past, but I love that he's such a modernist he would not admit something of his was influenced by anyother movement or culture, everything he created was forward looking.

        On another note, does anyone have the chaps he did? I know they're a bit ridiculous, but I'm seriously considering getting them off yoox if they go on sale a bit more (who else is going to buy them!?). I think if I wore them over black pants it could be more subltle, like they're just part of super detailed pants. I would be curious to see any pictures of someone wearing this in real life.
        music

        Comment

        • rach2jlc
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2006
          • 265

          #5
          Re: Helmut Lang



          I'm more anxious than anybody that Helmut come back, but I'm afraid if he doesn't do it soon, he's going to find his old customer base long having since moved on. I still have tons of his clothes that I wear and love, but when he left, that caused me to move to other designers and try new things.



          So, if he's going to come back, he needs to do it fairly soon, or at least announce something so his buyers can make room in their budgets, in their closets, and in their hearts for him. He's NEVER been the sort of designer that people will wait in two-mile long lines to buy, so what's with the secrecy? I could almost see a sort of glitzy, hype-building secrecy around Tom Ford, who has always attempted to create a public persona around himself that is often more interesting than his designs, but not so with Helmut. He's a brilliant designer, but he isn't all that fascinating a guy (he's not terribly attractive, he's not particularly lucid when he speaks, and his clothes are so understated that they don't scream "BUY ME!" without being able to appreciate them in person).



          If he's trying to build hype... he's did that over a year ago with the HL-Art discussion... but now it's been long enough that the interest is starting to wane. As my dear grandmother used to say, "shit or get off the pot."

          Comment

          • macuser3of5
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2006
            • 276

            #6
            Re: Helmut Lang



            All I can say is that Mr. Helmut Lang is a fantastic man.





            Seriously! Check it out:









            What a strange thing to come across during late-night eBay scavenging...
            [:|][:D]

            Comment

            • casem
              Senior Member
              • Sep 2006
              • 2590

              #7
              Re: Helmut Lang

              Yea, there's been some talk lately about his sudden reapperance in some magazines such as this and Butt. Unfortunately, in an interview with Tim Blanks (I can't remember where I saw this) he doesn't sound to enthusiastic to jump back into fashion. He seems happy doing occasional artistic projects with his HL Art group and not so keen and jumping back into fashion. Can't blame him, but I wish he would come back for selfish reasons.
              music

              Comment

              • casem
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2006
                • 2590

                #8
                Re: Helmut Lang

                Ha, that interview is actually IN Fantastic Man. From wwd.com:

                "LONG ON LANG: What’s Helmut Lang up to these days? Is he making a play to come back to fashion? The former designer answers those questions in an interview with Tim Blanks in the new issue of Fantastic Man magazine, to hit newsstands Oct. 12. Lang, who recently has issued a series of enigmatic contributions in magazines from Self Service to Achtung, graces the cover of the book bare-chested and clutching a rooster in front of his Long Island abode, in a photo by Bruce Weber. Though he says little of the experience of selling control of his company to Prada and his subsequent departure from fashion, Lang does says he’s “perfectly happy” in his new life of concentrating on his ambiguous art projects, which he has grouped under the umbrella of a new company, called HL-art. As for fashion, he doesn’t seem intent on jumping back in the fray. “I think I’m very happy about the decision to change,” he told Blanks. “I think I’m just following up the things I never had time for.”

                — Robert Murphy"





                Is this magazine available in the US? I don't remember ever seeing it.

                music

                Comment

                • Faust
                  kitsch killer
                  • Sep 2006
                  • 37852

                  #9
                  Re: Helmut Lang



                  OMG, a picture of Helmut holding his cock!



                  Case, the magazine is fairly widely available in the US - I've seen it in B&N and Borders, not to mention Hudson News.



                  I can see why Helmut would be happy about not coming back to fashion - he cashed out handsomely on the sale of his company, and the last years of fighting with the Devil (Bertelli, for the uninitiated) must have really turned him off from the whole thing. HOWEVER, I am still grappling with the fact that Helmut turned out some of his best collections during those last years. Could Hegel be right? Does progress really come out of struggle?

                  Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                  StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                  Comment

                  • dontbecruel
                    Senior Member
                    • Sep 2006
                    • 494

                    #10
                    Re: Helmut Lang

                    I leafed through Fantastic Man in Borders today. The HL article is pretty blah but there's an interesting interview with Mark E Smith of The Fall. And a feature on moustaches coming back into fashion.

                    Comment

                    • rach2jlc
                      Senior Member
                      • Sep 2006
                      • 265

                      #11
                      Re: Helmut Lang



                      COME ON, Helmut... we waited two years for this?



                      How boring and lame. Sigh...

                      Comment

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