Helmut Lang

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Self-portrait 2007

Helmut Lang (* on March 10, 1956 in Vienna as Peter Scepka) is an Austrian artist and former fashion designer who achieved worldwide fame in the 1990s with minimalist - avant-garde women's and men's fashion in the upper price segment and is still one of the most important international fashion designers today this time counts.

The fashion brand Helmut Lang , founded by Lang in 1986, was owned by Prada from 1999 to 2006 and has since belonged to a Japanese textile company as Helmut Lang New York LLC . The fashion label has been run without Lang since 2005, who has been an artist ever since.

Career and company history

Born in the 22nd district of Vienna , Peter Scepka grew up with his grandparents who ran a shoemaker's shop in Ramsau am Dachstein . From 1966 he lived with his father and his second wife in Vienna, where he attended secondary school and graduated in 1976 from the commercial academy as a “businessman for higher tasks”. After working as a waiter and bartender, he opened a self-taught fashion boutique called Bou Bou in Vienna in 1979 at the age of 23 , where he sold clothes he had designed himself. He had the idea for this after having had simple clothes tailored for himself, which those around him appealed to. In 1980 he presented his first prêt-à-porter collection. Because of the great success at a Vienna exhibition in 1986 at the Center Pompidou in Paris , he finally called himself Helmut Lang after his third first name and the "family name of the grandparents on his mother's side" and founded the fashion company named after him. His first catwalk fashion show for women's fashion took place in Paris that same year. His simple, sober, wearable fashion stood in stark contrast to the extravagant designs of the Parisian fashion giants of the time, such as Thierry Mugler , Claude Montana or Jean-Paul Gaultier . In 1987 a men's collection was added. In 1988 Lang returned to Vienna.

From 1986 to 1997 he had the Viennese manufacturer Ludwig Reiter produce shoes for his collections. The starting point was a simple welted low shoe from his grandfather, which was produced by Ludwig Reiter in the 1950s and which Helmut Lang now had mass-produced as a permanent part of the collection. Many other models were added later, mostly based on classics by Ludwig Reiter such as trainers and chestnuts.

At the beginning of the 1990s he achieved his international breakthrough with his minimalist creations made from combinations of high-tech fabrics such as nylon and rubber . For a long time, however, he resisted leaving his native Vienna, where he last lived at Esslinggasse 5 in the first district . From 1993 to 1996 Lang taught as a professor in the fashion class at the University of Applied Arts Vienna . In 1994 he started working with the photographer Juergen Teller , who took photos of models in Lang's backstage area, which Lang used as campaign images for his fashion. Until the late 1990s, Lang showed his creations during the Paris Fashion Weeks .

Lang finally moved to New York at the beginning of 1998 and in April 2000 was the first non-American fashion designer to be admitted to the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), from which he received the International Award in 1996 and in 2000 for the best men's fashion designer (the He stayed away from the award) was awarded. During this time, Lang presented his fashion at the fashion weeks in New York. He had his first fashion show after moving, for autumn / winter 1998/99, filmed in a white studio, streamed it on his website and distributed it to journalists on CD-ROM . In mid-July 1998 he decided to present his collections in New York ahead of the shows in Milan, London and Paris, namely on September 17th and not at the beginning of November. Calvin Klein , Donna Karan and others followed Lang's example, and so New York Fashion Week , which until then had always taken place after the European shows, was permanently brought forward six weeks from autumn 1999. Since then, the international fashion shows have been heralded in the annual fashion calendar in New York. During this period, advertisements for Helmut Lang were, unusually, placed in National Geographic magazine and placed on the roofs of New York taxis .

Lang's high-priced, purist fashion was characterized by trend- independent, timeless designs, tight-fitting black suits , the predominant use of black , beige and white , the unconventional juxtaposition of high-quality fabrics with high-tech materials or latex and PVC , as well as applications made of canvas fabric tapes . For his deconstructivist style and intellectual designs, Lang has been compared to Japanese avant-garde artists Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto . For creative people and intellectuals, Lang was the “father of coolness” and secured a certain cult status with his followers . The Helmut Lang brand consisted of a women's and a men's line, which were presented together in one show at fashion shows. From 1996 to 2000 there was the Helmut Lang Jeans second line and underwear by Helmut Lang. Between 2000 and 2002, three perfumes - first Helmut Lang (women), Helmut Lang Pour Homme (men) and later Helmut Lang Cuiron (men) - were launched in cooperation with Procter & Gamble , the production of which was discontinued after the company was sold. The first two fragrances were produced at Lang's insistence, although the manufacturer had advised Lang against these fragrance compositions . A Helmut Lang perfumery was operated in New York from 2000 .

Lang first sold 51% of his company to the Prada Group in 1999 and, after turbulent years, finally sold the rest of his shares in October 2004. In 2002 Prada brought the presentation of the collections back to Paris. In the spring of 2005, Lang left the company. There were Helmut Lang boutiques in Vienna, Munich, Milan , Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and New York. After the sale of the Helmut Lang brand , these shops were gradually closed.

In 2009, Lang received the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art . Lang currently lives in his home on Long Island near New York and works as an artist.

Fashion brand Helmut Lang today

The fashion label Helmut Lang in 2006 - of - after years of losses Prada to the American US - Japanese Group Link Theory Holdings Co. Ltd. sold, to which also the fashion brand theory belongs. Link Theory has been running the New York City-based Helmut Lang brand since 2007 as Helmut Lang New York LLC with its own stores in the upper price segment. Lang himself is not involved. Until March 2019, the CEO of Helmut Lang New York LLC was Andrew Rosen, the New York company founder of theory. He has been replaced by Dinesh Tandon, previously COO of Theory, but will remain with the company as a consultant.

Link Theory , part of the Fast Retailing Group, used the couple Nicole and Michael Colovos, founders of Habitual Jeans , as designers for both the women's and men's collections and in 2010 appointed the former Issey Miyake designer Naoki Takizawa, who is also his own fashion label operates, for the men's collection by Helmut Lang. Helmut Lang's men's fashion was temporarily discontinued in 2010 and only relaunched in 2014 with the New York designer Alexandre Plokhov. The Colovos couple left the company in February 2014. Since then, women's fashion, including the lower-priced Helmut second line launched in 2012 (now discontinued), has been designed by an internal design team. Helmut Lang's women's fashion was presented again at New York Fashion Week from autumn 2011 after a six-year absence from the catwalks until the Colovos' retirement. Plokhov left Helmut Lang early 2017. Andrew Rosen sat in a row for the women's collections no new a chief designer, but appointed in March 2017, the editor of the British Dazed magazine, Isabella Burley, the "house editor" ( editor-in residence ) with Helmut Lang. At the same time, the Hood by Air designer Shayne Oliver was hired for a one-off special collection for women and men.

In autumn 2017, Mark Howard Thomas, previously a fashion designer for Neil Barrett, Givenchy and Joseph , took over the creative direction of Helmut Lang's men's collections. Burley was followed in spring 2018 by Alix Browne, co-founder of the American fashion magazine V Magazine . In January 2019, Thomas Cawson, previously with Levi's , Abercrombie & Fitch , G-Star and Calvin Klein Jeans, was appointed designer of the company's jeans division.

As of 2014, Link Theory had Helmut Lang stores worldwide in New York (6 ×), California (2 ×), Atlanta , Chestnut Hill (Massachusetts) , London, Paris, Shanghai (2 ×) and Tokyo. By 2019, all stores except the two in New York's Meatpacking District and Tokyo's Ginza were closed. At the end of 2014, the original perfumes Eau de Parfum (women), Eau de Cologne (men) and Cuiron (men) , which were temporarily discontinued in 2005, were re-launched by Helmut Lang New York LLC.

Helmut Lang as an artist

Solo exhibitions

2008

2007

  • Next Ever After, The Journal Gallery. New York.
  • Selective Memory Series, Purple Institute. Paris.

2002-2004

  • Helmut Lang, “Séance de Travail”. Paris.

1998

  • Helmut Lang, S / S 99. online.

1997-2002

  • Helmut Lang, “Séance de Travail”. New York.

1988-1997

  • Helmut Lang, “Séance de Travail”. Paris.

1986

  • Viennese Modernism. Center National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Group exhibitions

2010

2009

  • INDUSTRIAL LIGHT MAGIC, Goethe Institute, New York.

1998

Collaborations

2005

  • VB53. Pitti Immagine Foundation, Florence.

2001

1999

  • VB38. Analix Forever Gallery, Geneva.

1992

Web links

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  1. ↑ From 19 on, stupidity breaks beauty sueddeutsche.de, August 2016
  2. ↑ “Father of Minimalism” derstandard.de, March 10, 2006
  3. ↑ Glamor vom Dachstein spiegel.de, October 17, 1994
  4. ↑ The Lord of the Maypole derstandard.at, August 28, 2008
  5. ↑ Helmut ohne Lang faz.net, January 25, 2005
  6. ^ Designer Robert La Roche: The world as glasses and imagination profil.at, November 28, 2013
  7. ↑ Helmut Lang turns 60 diepresse.com, March 10, 2016
  8. ↑ With an infallible hand faz.net January 25, 2005
  9. ↑ The search remains welt.de, July 29, 2001
  10. ^ Helmuts Längen , weltwoche.de, April 15, 2004
  11. ↑ Peter Scepka Helmut Langhaben24.at , accessed: July 9, 2017
  12. ↑ CFDA: Past Winners , cfda.com, accessed on March 13, 2015 (English).
  13. ^ "A Shock to the System": Helmut Lang on His Industry-Changing Fall 1998 Virtual Show vogue.com, February 9, 2016
  14. ↑ Eight Fascinating Fashion Designer Longreads racked.com, May 6, 2015
  15. ↑ Helmut Lang - Biography ( Memento from August 12, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) fashion-forum.org, accessed: June 10, 2017
  16. ↑ Moment 75: Helmut Lang changes the calendar , wwd.com, November 1, 2010
  17. ↑ Helmut Lang and the future of minimalism , parapluie.de, spring 2001
  18. ↑ About: Helmut Lang ( Memento from July 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ Helmut Lang as an artist - A master of coolness sees black , Der Spiegel, August 31, 2008
  20. ↑ Helmut Lang ( memento of September 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), W Magazine, October 2008
  21. ↑ Helmut Lang: The Enduring Legacy of Fashion's Greatest Artist grailed.com, February 15, 2017
  22. ↑ Lang to debut scents and shop , WWD (via accessmylibrary.com, Engl.), March 17, 2000
  23. ↑ Helmut Lang: Naoki Takizawa as the new stylist , fashionmag.com, April 20, 2010, accessed on March 13, 2015.
  24. ↑ Parallele Modewelten , bilanz.ch, January 4, 2012
  25. ↑ Helmut lang returns to the runway with a Richard Serra – inspired show , nymag.com, September 10, 2011
  26. ↑ A new era of Helmut Lang is coming dazed, com, April 2017
  27. ^ Helmut Lang Names Isabella Burley Its First-Ever Editor in Residence; HBA's Shayne Oliver to Collaborate vogue.com, March 13, 2017
  28. ↑ How the Helmut Lang reboot is continuing vogue.com.au, February 13, 2019
  29. ↑ The Return of Helmut Lang's Cultish '90s Perfume , vogue.com, October 13, 2014
  30. ^ [1] Silva, Horacio "Now Hanging, Helmut Lang's Artwork" , The New York Times, December 2007.
  31. ↑ Archive link ( memento of July 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Purple Fashion ( memento of October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Purple Institute, 2007.
  32. ↑ Style.com [2] , Condenet, 2007 . [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
  33. ↑ Style.com [10] , Condenet, 2007. [11] [12] [13]
  34. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from July 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Archive link ( Memento from April 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  35. ↑ Tame, Olivier "Langfroid , Artforum International, October 1995 accessed March 13, 2015 (English).
  36. ↑ MMK Frankfurt am Main | Museum of Modern Art: Exhibition details ::: MMK Frankfurt am Main. Archived from the original on July 9, 2018 ; Retrieved June 29, 2017 .
  37. ↑ [14]
  38. ↑ Deitch Projects Vanessa Beecroft VB45. ( Memento of October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) 2006.
  39. ^ Sidonie von Grasenabb: A Space, Not and Ac. Artnet, April 8, 2005.
personal data
SURNAME Lang, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian fashion designer and artist
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria