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  • mrbeuys
    Senior Member
    • May 2008
    • 2313

    #76




    Hi. I like your necklace. - It's actually a rape whistle, but the whistle part fell off.

    Comment

    • mrbeuys
      Senior Member
      • May 2008
      • 2313

      #77






      Hi. I like your necklace. - It's actually a rape whistle, but the whistle part fell off.

      Comment

      • casem
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2006
        • 2590

        #78
        Ha! I have those boots, and was ready to let them go on the classifieds here for dirt cheap over a year ago. Nobody jumped on them so I kept 'em. Glad I did, now I see how to wear them!

        Originally posted by Fade
        I've never seen such a wonderful pair of boots...those will be my "footwear holy grail" for sure
        music

        Comment

        • Chrisibabe
          Junior Member
          • Nov 2008
          • 12

          #79
          shawn/jevna: saying "I like the new HL Design" is the crucial point.
          The new HL Design is a kind of mainstream Helmut Lang - oriented in all the creative ideas this man had 5-15 years ago. They simply pillaged his design (with poorer quality) and honey-drenched it to make it mass-compatible. There's not a single own conceptual/design idea from the new design team.
          An now, after ten years, you come, see and like it.
          Thats one of the things about Mr. Helmut Lang: that he worked in a way YOU gonna like in 10 Years.

          Comment

          • rach2jlc
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2006
            • 265

            #80
            Ah... Lang... makes me nostalgic (haha). BUT, like I have said on other threads (like the HL-art thread), his day is done and he's been replaced by a whole new generation of creative talents.

            Lang defined pretty much all of my early twenties, when I got my first "real" job and finally had a little bit of extra cash to buy clothes. From jeans to shirts to suits to outerwear... he just "clicked" for me. I've always had difficulty finding clothes that rode the line between being simple, minimal, well made, tactile (meaning interesting fabrics), and NOT boring. So often "minimal" stuff was a synonym for boring... but not with lang.

            That's all changed; to be honest, I feel a bit out of the loop the past 3-4 seasons as the aesthetics are changing away from how I've always defined my dress. In some ways, this is a good thing as the diversity of menswear is wonderful, but in other ways, I start to find myself with less interest as a consumer in where I want to spend my money. I find myself a window-shopper as I have great difficulty in actually WEARING many of the garments in vogue. I find myself sticking with 'staples' instead of experimenting.

            Nevertheless, Lang was a defining moment... or a defining decade (from, lets say 1995-2005 or so) and really took us in a lot of new directions.

            The new Lang is, well, not the same. :(

            Comment

            • Babar
              Member
              • Jan 2007
              • 54

              #81
              Originally posted by Chrisibabe View Post
              shawn/jevna: saying "I like the new HL Design" is the crucial point.
              The new HL Design is a kind of mainstream Helmut Lang - oriented in all the creative ideas this man had 5-15 years ago. They simply pillaged his design (with poorer quality) and honey-drenched it to make it mass-compatible. There's not a single own conceptual/design idea from the new design team.
              An now, after ten years, you come, see and like it.
              Thats one of the things about Mr. Helmut Lang: that he worked in a way YOU gonna like in 10 Years.
              I disagree with this sentiment. There's really not much resemblance of the old Helmut Lang in the new stuff at all. I expected Theory to just dive into the archives and reinvent ideas he had back in the golden years, like you say, but that didn't really happen.. I'd say it has more in common with all the other New York based brands that's popped up over the last few years than HL.

              Comment

              • casem
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2006
                • 2590

                #82
                Great post rach2jlc. I agree on both points that due to the cyclic nature of fashion Helmut's time has come and gone but also that I've had trouble moving on. I only discovered Helmut at the tail end of his career, but he was what got me into fashion.

                Every designer that I liked has moved on, Helmut, Slimane, Plokhov and Sander. Despite all the new designers coming up I haven't found a single one to get as excited about. Even with sales gearing up right now there isn't anything I can think of I want (not all bad given the economy). I'm not sure what it is, I'm not that old and don't want to be out of touch already but I just don't dig the direction most designers are going in these days.

                The same thing happened to me in the late 90s when all the grunge bands broke up/died. In a short span every band I liked was over, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains etc. My friends used to make fun of me that my approval of a band was a death kiss. It took me a few years before I was into anything new (i listened exclusively to classical music for a long time). But, I guess I moved on and now have new bands I like, maybe the same will happen with fashion.
                music

                Comment

                • casem
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2006
                  • 2590

                  #83
                  Haha, I think I was down to $150 or so. Sorry folks, I'm keeping them now, I was hard up for money then, I'm going to try to make them work this winter. If its any consolation, besides the zipper they aren't that different from standard army surplus combat boots...

                  Originally posted by Fade
                  Just a curious information....for how much you tried to let them go?
                  (i'm preparing to eat all my fingers)
                  music

                  Comment

                  • Faust
                    kitsch killer
                    • Sep 2006
                    • 37852

                    #84
                    Originally posted by Babar View Post
                    I disagree with this sentiment. There's really not much resemblance of the old Helmut Lang in the new stuff at all. I expected Theory to just dive into the archives and reinvent ideas he had back in the golden years, like you say, but that didn't really happen.. I'd say it has more in common with all the other New York based brands that's popped up over the last few years than HL.
                    Agreed. Jevan and shawn, quick history - Prada bought Helmut Lang in 1999 (they also bought Jil Sander, trying to completely dominate the "minimalist" market, but then Hedi came and spoiled the whole thing for menswear, and Tom Ford spoiled it for womenswear, so the aesthetic has shifted), ousted Helmut in 2004 (and Jil Sander in the same year), and sold the company to Theory in 2006. This HL has nothing to do with the old HL, and the fact that Helmut Lang is a venerable designer, who indeed defined a decade of style and will go down in fashion history, makes it all the more fucked up. Old fans of Helmut Lang not only don't even look at the new label, but may take offense when someone talks about in a positive tone.
                    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                    StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                    Comment

                    • Chrisibabe
                      Junior Member
                      • Nov 2008
                      • 12

                      #85
                      just to keep my integrity: ;)
                      I never wanted to say anything positive about the new HL. That would be absurd, cause it's crap. Maybe I've not made myself clear enough in my post and it was misinterpreted.

                      Comment

                      • Faust
                        kitsch killer
                        • Sep 2006
                        • 37852

                        #86
                        /\ no, we understood. babar just took it to a whole new level.
                        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                        Comment

                        • mrbeuys
                          Senior Member
                          • May 2008
                          • 2313

                          #87
                          Index Magazine Interview 2004

                          I came across this interview while looking for the more recent Bourgeois one in Wallpaper, which I have missed on paper and was hoping to find online somewhere (is it?).

                          I hadn't seen this here, slap my wrist if it's been posted already. I copied it here, because on the Index site it's impossible to read.

                          His last answer is quite wonderful.

                          -------------------------------------------------
                          Helmut Lang, 2004

                          WITH PETER HALLEY

                          Helmut Lang is a complicated guy, a personality vibrant with the push-pull of creative contradiction. While he can only be described as the most European of men, he has chosen to live and work in New York. He is reserved and irreverent, methodical and spontaneous, a doer and a dreamer. Perhaps this same complexity is what has fueled his fashion design over two decades, allowing him to create work that is always refined and coherent, and usually transgressive and provocative as well. Peter Halley spoke to the designer in his studio in Soho.
                          PETER: The idea of starting a fashion house in Vienna is so improbable.

                          HELMUT: I know. It's beyond my imagination now. I think you only do these things when you are very young and inexperienced, and you have nothing to lose. Somehow I just slipped into fashion quite early on, which I had never planned.

                          PETER: You started when you were just eighteen or nineteen years old.

                          HELMUT: My teenage years were so restricted. It was a really hard time. I came from very simple circumstances, and I had the classical stepmother in a bad Hollywood movie. When I could finally move out when I was eighteen, I just had to find myself.

                          PETER: That was '74 perhaps? Was how you dressed your form of expression?

                          HELMUT: I was trying to define myself in terms of fashion. I think I wanted to do what everybody does at that age. You want to look good, you want to go out, you want to explore life and sexuality.

                          PETER: Were you putting together things you found, or were you making them yourself?

                          HELMUT: I had clothes made, but mostly in polyester, because it was very cheap. At the time, the fashion industry had not yet arrived in Vienna. We had this very strong made-to-measure tradition left over from the old Austrian culture. There were a lot of seamstresses who had their own little businesses. People would ask me where I bought something, and I'd say I had it made. They'd say, "Can you do something for me?" I'd say, "Sure," because I was looking for something to do anyway.

                          PETER: Working with the seamstresses was, in a way, your education.

                          HELMUT: Yeah, directly. I had a little studio with two or three seamstresses ÷ that's how we started. Then I said, "Well, we have to do a fashion show in Paris." We did a show, which was completely naive and crazy. As I said before, you can only do this if you're young, inexperienced, and have no idea of the consequences.

                          PETER: I guess you have always had the confidence to make things happen.

                          HELMUT: That's something that I had quite early on in life, I think. I grew up with my grandparents really high up in the mountains ÷ it was very detached from civilization, actually. When I was a little kid, I would always gather the other kids together to make things. When the first tourists came, we put flowers, stones, and sticks into little plastic ice cream cups. We were handing them out or selling them ÷ I can't remember which. So on the one hand, I am very conscious, but on the other hand, I depend a lot on imagination for the creative work.

                          PETER: What was it about fashion that became your sustaining passion?

                          HELMUT: The most important and intriguing thing about fashion is that it relates to people immediately, in a very short time frame. That's also an incredible burden, because of the concentration of the work. It's so fast and so intense. It needs so much input ÷ you always have it in your head. There are also the deadlines. But a deadline also forces you to formulate. Without one, it's actually much harder.

                          PETER: Despite your Viennese beginnings, your work has always had an international feeling.

                          HELMUT: I don't feel particularly Austrian, even though that's where I was born. I've always felt quite borderless. I'm more interested in groupings that have to do with familiarities of the mind. I think that fashion, art, and everything else can only work globally. People everywhere are looking for a certain idea ÷ for things to look at, to dress in, to be inspired by. Of course, there are variations around the world, especially in art. But more than ever such local character is becoming less and less intense.

                          PETER: Vienna is so interesting historically. Austria was a multi-ethnic empire until the beginning of the last century.

                          HELMUT: My father's side is Polish, Russian and Czechoslovakian, and my mother's is Hungarian and Yugoslavian. I was only born in Vienna. My family was not from there.

                          PETER: It's a big place, in a way.

                          HELMUT: It was a big place. A hundred years ago, there was something about Vienna that was truly revolutionary ÷ and strong. It had all this incredible tradition and also a strong counter-movement towards modernism. But just before the Second World War it was basically deserted. It's been that way ever since. What's left now is just a phantom of the spirit which was there, but that's good enough.

                          PETER: It's a city that seems to inspire some ambivalence.

                          HELMUT: If you live there for a while, it animates you somehow. Vienna itself is sweet and mean enough to train you for anything. Before I went to New York, everyone said, "You'll see, New York is really hard." But in comparison to Vienna, New York is really nice. Vienna is what it is. If you have something creative you want to do, you have to leave, or it will kill you. I felt that from the very beginning.

                          PETER: And that's where Paris comes in.

                          HELMUT: I have spent a lot of my time in Paris. In the '80s, the city was really astonishing ÷ it was one big creative party. What was so unique was something that is lost everywhere today ÷ you had all kinds of people, people from different age groups, just going out and having fun. It was about contact, exchange, doing things, working together ÷ it wasn't as ghettoized. I found it incredibly productive but very amusing at the same time. Then it all closed up in the '90s. I had always thought that I would move our fashion house to Paris. But in the end we came to New York, which was even better.

                          PETER: You seem like such a European guy. It's interesting that you have chosen to live in New York.

                          HELMUT: As a base, I'm very lucky to have New York. It has a different mindset. When I go back to show in Paris, in a way it's like going home. I've been going there for a long time now, so I know a lot of people. But there is also something about Europe that is quite heavy-handed. You'd probably go crazy in a European town after being in New York.
                          Hi. I like your necklace. - It's actually a rape whistle, but the whistle part fell off.

                          Comment

                          • mrbeuys
                            Senior Member
                            • May 2008
                            • 2313

                            #88
                            Continued:

                            PETER: Are there things you miss?

                            HELMUT: Europe has this fantastic, rich quality that I wish we had in Soho. If September 11th hadn't happened, maybe Soho would have achieved that kind of coffee-house culture.

                            PETER: I sometimes imagine your menswear was designed for a prototypical nomadic European.

                            HELMUT: Things often appear different when you are looking at them from the outside. I have never tried to localize my work for a certain group or certain type of man. Of course, I recognize that what I do is always related to culture because it is made for people, so it has to relate to their lives.

                            PETER: One year ago, you opened your made-to- measure boutique at 142 Greene Street in Soho. It's like a return to your early years in Vienna, making clothes for private clients.

                            HELMUT: By the late '90s, I was thinking, "What else shall I do?" I decided we should do made-to-measure, in order to provide really personal service again. It's a counter-movement to the corporate and marketing elements that are so strong in fashion. A lot of the made-to-measure work is for our Hollywood clients. But it also functions as a design studio. We have the prototypes for the collections there. It's like we've come full circle.

                            PETER: Helmut Lang, as a company, has such a cohesive worldview. The made-to-measure shop, the taxicab advertisements, the runway shows, and the design itself all reflect the same sensibility. And I've always admired your website.

                            HELMUT: It's just very simple. It's there to provide information. I felt that our website shouldn't be full of tricks or grab for attention as if it were based on computer games. We just thought it should just be a normal extension of what we do. Before we launched our site, our work was always edited by someone else ÷ in magazines, on TV. The entire body of work could never be seen, except by a few fashion professionals. The great benefit of the internet is that everybody can have access to everything.

                            PETER: The simple design is very satisfying.

                            HELMUT: I always think that I should look at it again to see what else we could do. But then there's another show or something else to do, so I never really come back to it. At the very beginning, the website designers we talked to said, "Your website looks like shit. We could do a lot for you," blah, blah, blah. We'd look at their ideas and say, "This is everything we don't want." So we didn't change anything in the end.

                            PETER: In your own way, you are very good at business.

                            HELMUT: I'm not so sure I'm so good at it. I never wanted to do it, but I had to for a really long time. Of course, four years ago we merged with Prada.

                            PETER: As a creative person in business, you have to keep everything together, otherwise things just don't happen.

                            HELMUT: I think of it just as defending my creative point of view. In the end, I'm the only one who can take care of it ÷ there really isn't anyone else who can do that for me. From the beginning, I wanted to be able to concentrate on the creative aspects of the work and everything that's related to image. But you always have to do much more than you actually want to. There is no such thing as being completely detached from all these issues. Somehow, they always come back to haunt you.

                            PETER: Is it a different process from the creative decisions?

                            HELMUT: Yes. With creative decisions, it is very emotional. It's not about togetherness. It's the fight to reach the point at which whatever you're creating is strong enough to fight you back. Then you just have to let it go. You are the only one who can really decide that.

                            PETER: Your creative life seems to be characterized by a few very stable long-term relationships. The architect Richard Gluckman designed all your spaces in New York. You don't switch from one architect to another every two years.

                            HELMUT: I think as long as a relationship is good, there is really no reason to break it. It's as simple as that. The idea of being faithful is a good one, as long as it works for both parties. But if it doesn't work anymore, it will fall apart anyway. That's also happened to me. In the course of your life, people come and go. If you're lucky, there are very few people ÷ perhaps one or two ÷ who you will know for your entire life.

                            PETER: You have longstanding friendships with two artists, Jenny Holzer and Louise Bourgeois. Louise Bourgeois must be in her eighties, but she's doing great work.

                            HELMUT: She has this incredible quality. When you meet her in person, you leave so completely enriched and touched. I think she's incredibly strong and focused at the same time. She's producing so much wonderful work now. She's at an age where that is basically all she wants to do.

                            PETER: Visual people like yourself often have a need to create a visually harmonious environment.

                            HELMUT: I am definitely interested in architecture and interior design. I like playing around with my environment. It's something that I have to do. I don't always have to build something from the ground up ÷ I'll change rooms or move things around just to be sure that they are in the right place. Sometimes before doing a new collection, I used to rearrange my entire apartment.

                            PETER: It's almost a design warm-up.

                            HELMUT: I like everything that's an exercise of form or proportion in areas that have nothing to do with fashion. It's important to look at a lot of different things to train your eye.

                            PETER: For me, the proportions of a room can affect everything.

                            HELMUT: I think it's absolutely important.

                            PETER: If I go to a hotel, and the room is...

                            HELMUT: I can't go anymore.

                            PETER: I've found people usually don't understand this. They can't believe that it might have some connection with my actual work.

                            HELMUT: On the one hand, it should mean nothing. On the other hand, if I stay in a hotel room in which everything is against me, I am unable to relax ÷ there's just no way around it. If the proportions feel contrary to me, I can't feel at home. It's not about good taste or bad taste. You can find beauty in every kind of traditional style or in modernity. But, if a room feels completely dislocated, I would rather be in a tent. I won't be able to sleep, or I'll have to stay out all night long. It's difficult to explain, but I think it has something to do with just taking care of your environment.

                            PETER: How do you absorb cultural information? How do you follow what's going on in New York?

                            HELMUT: My cultural experience starts with CNN in the morning, which I started to watch regularly after September 11th. I think that's just what you do in New York. Earlier this year there was a week of exhibitions called Americana. I was interested to find out how American design differs from the European tradition. It was a very good counterpoint to contemporary art. It's always fun to watch the crowd, which was so completely different from the art crowd or the fashion crowd.

                            PETER: And these influences somehow go back into the work.

                            HELMUT: Fashion is an expression and a reaction. It's a reflection, and even a proposal, on the current situation of our society. In line with this, whatever sidesteps you take should have some humor and some element of provocation. The work should contain some ideas that will eventually grow in the future, and some that just go off like fireworks ÷ that explode and glimmer briefly, and then fade. Hopefully, the consistency of the work over the years adds up to an interesting story. Depending on how strong you are, that story can be short or long.
                            Hi. I like your necklace. - It's actually a rape whistle, but the whistle part fell off.

                            Comment

                            • surver
                              Senior Member
                              • Oct 2007
                              • 638

                              #89
                              helmut lang... the good ol' days of fashion... when all it had to do is 'whisper' and affects so many people... not like nowadays where EVERYONE finds the need to scream to gain attention...

                              Comment

                              • Buckwheat
                                Senior Member
                                • Sep 2006
                                • 409

                                #90
                                Bringing this thread back up. I just got a pair of the black lace up with metal heel insert. I have been looking for a pair for long time.

                                Thanks for the interview mrbeuys!

                                I miss that old SOHO store. Back in the days visiting a HL store was a heart pounding experience.

                                Comment

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