some lang

reminding myself how awesome pre-Theory Helmut Lang was (and still is), some detail pictures from his shows in 03 that I came across on while forum surfing. it is startling how little the design of the pieces have aged, if at all.

pomo lang

Came across this 1998 Harper's Bazaar article about Helmut Lang while doing some googling at work. (don't ask me why or how). I was struck by how some of his words revealed a somewhat post-modern sensibility beneath the veneer of a modernist.

"I'd been thinking about using the Internet for a long time, so it just seemed the
moment to do it. It also felt right to keep contact with Europe, because it was the
first season we didn't do a show in Paris. We could be global, everyone could
see the clothes at the same time. It's democratic. You know‑his look is
ironic‑modern communication."
-on showing his collection via the internet instead of in fron tof a live audience

He seemed to have foreseen the effect the Internet had on how seasonal runway looks are being transmitted, the breaking down of the information monopoly and by extension, the power of the fashion media. Runway looks are available almost instantaneously on the Internet, quickly filtering into various niche blogs and forums, the new fashion cognoscenti.

""I have no trouble changing the rules...The point is, who has set out the rules?
Often it turns out they were set quite a while ago."
-on moving his show 6 weeks ahead of schedule

Questioning the structure but still working within the system, subverting it movement by movement. (Upon moving to New York, he showed his collection via the internet in place of a live runway show, singlehandedly moved the New York fashion week 6 weeks ahead of schedule and gave the New York fashion establishment a snub by staying at home on the evening of the CFDA Awards when he won best menswear designer in 2000).

"seeing the same thing in three situations, and how people make it different...I don't
take what people do with my clothes personally after I've released them. It's about
how people live in the pieces. The other day I saw a guy in one of the techno shirts
we did three years ago. It was completely integrated into what he was wearing and
still looking good. I love that."
-on how people are wearing his clothes

The creator can no longer control the form, function and meaning of a piece of work once it leaves his hands and the user (reader) has the full freedom to interpret this piece of work; the author dies.

"A lot of what I do is just shaping that or finding new forms that are crossovers, that
unconsciously remind you of something. Somewhere in their roots they have the comfort
of something familiar."
-on his design references

Understanding and exploiting the semiotics of clothing and reappropriating familiar forms in a new context, not unlike the pomo architects of the 80s but totally avoiding the gaudy and facile reinterpretation.

If you enjoyed this article, this is might also be worth a read.

Lang space

Window shopping is a favorite pastime of mine, ogling at things i can't afford, imagining some kind of future where those objects will make me a very happy man. Very often, pleasure is derived from the products that on the racks and the retail space is secondary, a mere container. But on rare occasions this container is elevated to the realm of the sublime.



Designed in collaboration with Gluckman Mayner Architects of New York, the store is conceived as a minimal gallery space with monolithic black boxes set parallel to each other on bare concrete floors. A cursory glance through the window would yield little signs of clothes. Greeted by a Jenny Holzer ticker tape installation, running texts of poetry and transcribed lovers' whispers (devoid of emotion), one enters the store. Delving further into the space the back sides of the monoliths are slowly revealed. The solidity breaks down as the monoliths are found to be hollow shells and within them pieces of Lang's urban uniform sway lightly on the metal rails.

The black monoliths evokes tombs and mausoleums , perhaps an omen of things to come. The space seemingly cold and sterile exudes a certain vitality and ethereal lightness and this lightness pervades even the objects within the space. The space is decidedly spiritual, and the contents, sacred objects (relics) which one would use and cherish forever. This is the temple of the future.

And if this is the future that Lang envisioned, I wouldn't mind living in it, even if it's controlled by some giant computer spewing out commands on a ticker tape display.




pictures from Gluckman Mayner Architects