Helmut Lang

Helmut Lang is an Austrian fashion designer (born in March 10 1956 in Vienna, Austria) known for his minimalist, deconstructivist, and often severe designs. The fashion label he created bears his name.

History of the Helmut Lang brand

Originally, Lang studied business, but switched over to fashion and opened his first studio in 1977. His clothes were fairly successful in his native Austria, and he branched out to Paris in 1986.

At this time in the late 1980's and early 1990's, minimalist fashion was at its height, with Jil Sander, Giorgio Armani, and Helmut Lang himself being very popular and successful. Clothes were made with very sharp lines and careful cuts, creating basic but extremely elegant silhouettes in high quality and often high-tech fabrics. Minimalism has lost some of its popularity, partially due to the recent prominence of designers such as John Galliano for Christian Dior or Dolce and Gabbana, but the movement seems to be returning, albeit in a different form, for the 2005-2006 winter season.^*

Helmut Lang used to make both a women's and men's line, but kept his collection under a single name. He also introduced an underwear and jeans line as well as accessories and fragrances, but otherwise preferred to keep the brand unified to solidify its identity and strength.

Prada Partnership

In 1999, Milan-based fashion house Prada acquired 51% of the Helmut Lang company in the course of a multi-brand strategy which also included the acquisition of German fashion label Jil Sander.

Despite the quality of the clothes and the slight revival of minimalist fashion this in the early 2000s, the Helmut Lang brand did not fare well. After disputes with Prada Group's CEO Patrizio Bertelli on how the brand should be continued and after Mr. Lang had sold his remaining shares to Prada in October 2004, he left his own label in February 2005.^* Lang now joins the growing group of designer departures, including Jil Sander and Tom Ford.

After Mr. Lang's departure Prada unsuccessfully tried to continue the collections with an in-house design team. In March 2005, Prada closed down the label's headquarters in SoHo, New York. in September 2005, Prada announced that production of the lines had been halted. By the end of 2005, all that existed of the brand was its name: the design atelier had been closed, the collections had been discontinued and all of the art-inspired Helmut Lang stores had been shut down (with the exception of the Paris Rue Faubourg St. Honore location to sell remaining stock). The corporate web site, that used to display pictures of the collections, accessories and perfumes, remained online but no contents could be seen anymore.

Helmut Lang stores

All Helmut Lang stores have been closed. The last one to close was the Paris location in late 2005. The company also maintained several store-in-stores in Tokyo, Nagoya, Manhasset and Paris.

81 Greene Street, New York, USA (flagship store)
219, rue Saint-Honore, Paris, France
Via Della Spiga, 11, Milan, Italy
Kardinal Faulhaber Strasse 3, Munich, Germany
Seilergasse 6, 1010 Vienna, Austria

Recent developments

On March 17, 2006, Prada Group announced that, after six loss-making years, Link Theory Holdings (LTH) of Tokyo will be acquiring the Helmut Lang brand (for an estimated € 20 million). This came about three weeks after Prada had sold the Jil Sander label to British equity firm Change Capital Partners (CCP). Already in spring 2005, it was rumored that Prada was trying to sell the label. Prada Group is said to concentrate on its core labels Prada and Miu Miu again. The Japanese holding company LTH, developer of the Theory fashion label in Japan and the US, is said to re-launch the Helmut Lang collections under the direction of a "suitable" designer for the spring/summer 2007 season (presented in fall 2006) in select boutiques worldwide as a “contemporary brand" Source: The London Times. The new label is supposed to be based out of New York city. LTH also owns profitable German fashion house Rosner which it bought in late October 2005 as well as the Joie, PLS+T and Kulson labels.

Rumor has it that Russian-born designer Alexandre Plokhov of menswear label Cloak, a former men's pattern maker for fashion house Marc Jacobs and winner of the 2005 Swarovski's Perry Ellis Award for Emerging Talent Menswear, could be the new designer for Helmut Lang. It is not expected that Mr. Lang himself will return to the label that bears his name, although Chikara Sasake, president and chief executive of Link-Theory Holdings Company, gave to understand that if Lang “wants to come back, the door is always open”.

Awards

CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year in 2000.

External links

Sources

Austrian fashion designers | 1956 births | Living people