Published: Thursday, September 14, 2006
BUTT RIGHT IN: Helmut Lang is causing a stir in Europe — but because of nudity, not clothing. The idled fashion designer, whose eponymous brand is now owned by Link Theory and designed by the former Habitual team, is the focus of an eye-popping seven-page portfolio in the current issue of the Dutch quarterly Butt, which trumpets itself as a "fantastic magazine for homosexuals."
The spread opens with a waist-down "self-portrait" of Lang wearing flimsy (to say the least) white gym shorts, followed by multiple snapshots he took of his feet propped up against cropped photos of men not wearing shorts of any kind. There's also a brief Q&A in which the designer responds to such questions as: "If you could design your own genitals, what would they look like?" His reply? "I have no need to redesign." According to the article, Lang took the series of photos for Butt at his farm on Long Island, N.Y. He said of the foot photos: "I don't particularly like my feet, so I felt they needed some serious backdrop."
But Butt isn't Lang's only newsstand appearance this fall. The designer also has a 10-page portfolio in German fashion magazine Achtung's latest issue — albeit without any flesh. The cryptic contribution shows arrangements of red wax seals on blue paper and hand-drawn charts juxtaposed against dictionary definitions of such words as pecking order, aristocratic and accountant. What does it all mean? "I don't know," confessed Achtung founder and chief editor Markus Ebner. "It's crests from famous German and Austrian aristocratic families. I find it sort of beautiful the way it colors the pages."
A spokesman for Lang said the magazine submissions are part of an ongoing project titled "Long Island Diaries" containing assorted records "without the usual and conventional dynamics of diaries." An excerpt was published in the French fashion magazine Self Service earlier this year with this oblique explanation from Lang: "I am against putting myself in a situation of defining what I am doing right now because it would not allow an organic outcome." The spokesman added that Lang does not plan to work in fashion "in the traditional sense, but part of his fashion DNA could be translated into his ongoing projects." These include Lang's "Selective Memory Series," a compilation of "written material, notes, documents, visuals and records of events since 1986," excerpts of which will soon be published, he added.
— Miles Socha
esp when it costs 2 arms and a leg.......yes it was velvonia .....and yes it was musk......i cld have sworn it gave me a little rash
...after my 10 th application.....i do like HL jeans.and shirts.....its just that THAT perfume sucked
.
...
...
