More on Herr Lang



WWD reports Hemlut Lang is displeased with a New York Times article last month which suggested he was guilty of "corporate insubordination," resisting attempts to add "lucrative accessories and luxury pieces" to his collection and that "unwavering dedication to his creative vision and his distinctive, if uncomfortably masochistic, bondage references will ultimately be recorded as the cause of his failure."

Personally, I think those are very admirable traits and part of why Lang is so awesome as a person and as a designer.

Michael and Nicole Colovos of Habitual will be taking over design at Helmut Lang [the brand] rather than Alexandre Plokhov, as rumored. The Colovos' work is nice and the lines are clean I suppose... hell, let's not beat around the bush: it is boring and comfortable - which undermines everything the brand stood for. What made Helmut Lang [the clothes] so incredible were the subversive and witty details, unexpected material choices and those "distinctive, if uncomfortably masochistic, bondage references." It was a singular, unrelenting creative vision which revolutionized both men's and women's wear in the late 1980s, created a small but extremely dedicated cult of fans, and influenced a whole generation of designers. It was never meant for everyone, but it was absolutely perfect for what it was. If parent company Theory thinks they can offer slouchy, more "accessible" [as Theory's Andrew Rosen puts it] products for a wider customer base, then they have already lost all the brand equity they spent tens of millions of dollars on before the first store even opens.