Helmut Lang (artist)

Helmut Lang ( born March 10, 1956 in Vienna) is an Austrian fashion designer with minimalist and avant-garde women's and men's fashion in the upper price segment gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s and today is one of the most important international fashion designers this time.

The fashion brand founded by Helmut Lang Lang 1986, 1999 to 2006 owned by Prada and since then is as Helmut Lang New York LLC a Japanese textile group. Since 2005, the fashion label is performed without long, which has since operated as an artist.

Career and business history

The from the 22nd district of Vienna (district part Kaisermuehlen ) derived Helmut Lang opened with 23 years as a self-taught his first fashion boutique ( Bou Bou Lang) in Vienna. Due to the big success in the context of Vienna Exhibition in 1986 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris was his first catwalk fashion show for women's fashion in the same year in Paris. This year, he founded the fashion company that bears his name. Its simple, sober, wearable fashion was in stark contrast to the extravagant designs of the former Parisian fashion sizes, such as Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean -Paul Gaultier. In 1987, added a men's collection.

In the early 1990s he succeeded with his minimalist creations from combinations of high-tech fabrics such as nylon and rubber international breakthrough. However, he resisted long to leave his native city of Vienna, where he last lived in the Eßlinggasse 5 in the first district. Mid-1990s, taught Lang Professor of Fashion Department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Until the late 1990s, long showed his creations during the fashion weeks in Paris.

Lang eventually moved in 1998 to New York and was admitted in April 2000 as the first non - American fashion professionals from the Council of Fashion Designers of America ( CFDA ), from which he had in 1996 received the International Award, and in 2000 as Best Menswear Designer ( the awards ceremony, he stayed away ) was excellent. In this time presented his fashion at the fashion weeks in New York. After long had in mid-1998 ado time presented his collections in New York before the shows in Milan and Paris and the fashion designer Calvin Klein was followed as first his example, the New York Fashion Week was which until then always after the shows in Milan and Paris had taken place, constantly brought forward six weeks in 1999 and since then the annual fashion calendar, the international fashion shows in. Advertisements for Helmut Lang were, unusually, connected in the National Geographic magazine and placed on the rooftops of New York taxis.

Characteristic of Lang's high-priced, purist fashion trend - independent, timeless designs, slim-cut, black suits, the predominant use of colors were black, beige and white, the unconventional juxtaposition of high-quality fabrics with high-tech materials or latex and PVC, and appliqués made of canvas fabric belts. For his deconstructivist style and his intellectual designs long compared with the Japanese Avant -garde Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto. Lang was for creatives and intellectuals of the "Father of coolness" and secured with his followers a certain cult status. The Helmut Lang brand consisted of a women's and a men's line, which were presented at fashion shows in a show together. For a short time there was the Helmut Lang jeans second-line and underwear from Helmut Lang. Between 2000 and 2002, in collaboration with Procter & Gamble three perfumes - first Helmut Lang (ladies), Helmut Lang Pour Homme (men) and later Helmut Lang Cuiron (men) - launched, whose production was discontinued after the sale of the company. The first two fragrances were produced at the insistence Lang, even though the manufacturer had long discouraged this fragrance compositions. In New York its own Helmut Lang perfume had been operated since 2000.

Long sold 1999 first 51% of his company to the Prada Group and, after turbulent years, finally in October 2004 the rest of its shares. 2002 Prada had retrieved the presentation of the collections to Paris. In spring 2005, long retired from the company. There was Helmut Lang boutiques in Vienna, Munich, Milan, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and New York. After the sale of the brand Helmut Lang, these stores were gradually closed.

2009 Lang received the Austrian Medal for Science and Art. Long currently lives in his home in Long Iceland, New York and is active as an artist.

Helmut Lang fashion brand today

The fashion label Helmut Lang in 2006 - after years of losses - sold by Prada to the American- Japanese group Link Theory Holdings Co. Ltd., which also includes the fashion brand theory belongs. Link Theory leads the Helmut Lang brand headquartered in New York City since 2007 with its own shops in the upper price segment. Lang himself is not involved. Link Theory, Part of Fast Retailing group, put the couple Nicole and Michael Colovos, founders of Habitual jeans, as a designer for both the ladies and the men's collection and appointed in 2010 the former Issey Miyake designer Naoki Takizawa, which is also his own fashion label operates, for the men's collection for Helmut Lang. The men's fashion from Helmut Lang, however, was temporarily suspended in 2010 and in 2014 re-launched with the New York designer Alexandre Plokhov. The couple Colovos left the company in February 2014. Womenswear, including the 2012 called into being cheaper Ladies second-line Helmut, has since been designed by an internal design team. The ladies fashion from Helmut Lang is presented in autumn 2011 after six years of absence from the catwalks again at the New York Fashion Week. The state in 2013 Link Theory entertained seven world Helmut Lang shops in New York City (4x), Los Angeles, London and Tokyo.

Helmut Lang as an artist

Solo Exhibitions

2008

  • Archives, 032c Museum Store. Berlin
  • ALL THE SAME HEAVY kestnergesellschaft. Hanover

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. Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Group Exhibitions

2009

  • INDUSTRIAL LIGHT MAGIC, Goethe Institute, New York.

1998

Collaborations

2005

  • VB53. Fondazione Pitti Immagine, Florence.

2001

1999

  • VB38.Galerie Analix Forever, Geneva.

1992

  • Kocherscheidt - Helmut Lang. Trocadero, Paris.
Limited Liability Company Jean Paul Gaultier Natural rubber Calvin Klein (fashion designer) Purism Latex clothing Ribbon Deconstructivism Odor Theory (clothing retailer) Louise Bourgeois Jenny Holzer Integrated Authority File
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