Puppy Tee | Long Sleeve Taxi Tee
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After a 2010 fire destroyed part of Helmut Lang's NY-based studio, leaving one of the 20th century's most influential design archives in ruin, Lang made a radical decision. Rather than inspecting each of the 6,000 archive samples to assess them for damage, Lang took ownership of the tragedy and destroyed the remaining archive himself. Showing no remorse, the Austrian-born designer oversaw the shredding of the surviving garments and, like a phoenix rising from the studio's ashes, 25 years of work was given new life as the raw materials in a new art installation dubbed 'Make It Hard'.
The fallout from this fire is what makes a re-editions collection from the Lang archives particularly significant. Although credited as the pioneer of modern streetwear - whose decision to interpret the clothes of the masses through a luxury lens has left an indeterminable legacy of global cultural value - very little of Lang's own fashion design work remains today.
It is this irreverent DNA, built upon a foundation of rule-breaking and free-spiritdness, that the Helmut Lang label looks to for their SS18 streetwear capsule. Featuring a slew of hand-drawn motifs, Helmut Lang's answer to the streetwear market's current proclivity for bold branding and attention-grabbing logos is a childlike commentary on the narcissim of eponymous brands.
Helmut Lang SS18 is now available at END.
