Helmut Lang S/S 2024 New York

[fenty]

Weren't they already making pieces like this before his appointment? #SAFE

 

[bc collector]

In Peter Do's defense:
At least he's referencing the archives, it's already a step forward.
Have we already forgotten the crimes committed in Helmut's name by the Colovos (rightly consigned to oblivion) or Shayne Oliver (years after, I still wonder what the heck he thought he was doing)?
My main concern is that Do is still relying too much on his personal taste for the boxy and the oversized (I think it's a generational thing) that has really nothing to do with Lang's precise tailoring.

For some reason I really would like Do to get somewhere, after so many failed attempts to revive this brand.

 

[jeanclaude]

I your write "Helmut Lang" using an AI image generator software, the result could be similar to this...

 

[gallianostan]

He was in the moment like natalie imbruglia. Like natalie imbruglia we have some cute songs from a time period but it doesnt extend outside that. He like her just didnt have it to create a long lasting career.

poor natalie imbruglia catching strays... leave her be lol

 

[Cocteau Stone]

It's a trite and pretty dour offering but what makes me feel so put off are the colours. Yes they're similar to what Helmut did before, but it is like Peter got the flattest and most digestible Pantone variant.

This has no hum or life to it. Helmut produced clothes that felt like fashion, an investment and something with wit and personality. Peter has just produced clothes for a contemporary catalogue.

 

[LadyJunon]

Reading the Vogue Runway article makes it look like he took up Lang solely for money/publicity for his own brand, especially this last paragraph:

The potential for the new Helmut Lang lies in those high fashion suits at reasonable, less-than-high fashion prices. “We want to open up the dialogue to a wider group of people… and for the clothes to have longevity without being super expensive,” Do said, adding that he wouldn’t have taken the job if the prices here were the same as at his own label. That instinct to create immediate and obvious differentiation between the two brands he’s now responsible for is proof that Do is thinking big picture. He may be starry-eyed about his designer hero, but he’s got his head on his shoulders about the business.

It's like he literally set it up to be diffusion line Peter Do...

Also the pink and yellow colours are obscenely lurid, especially when it's those (poly?) satin straps against that harsh black and white suiting.

 

[givenchypout]

i think a lot of the criticism comes down to the pr some of peter's friends, namely brenda hashtag, and fans of his namesake label have been doing for him ever since he was announced as the new creative directorof the brand, coupled with the fact that helmut lang, the brand, never managed to reposition itself in today's fashion landscape.

 

[Nimsay]

Who is Peter Do ??? this HL appointment is when I first saw his name. I see this Brenda Hashtag is a brand consultant. Her own personal style is good.

I guess Ill see him at NYFW. His ‘diffusion’ line is not wowing me.

 

[rip_ian curtis]

Wow! BAD!!
Peter Do’s first few seasons were more ”Helmut Lang” for today than what this flat mess is. What a miss from him. Makes me question his longevity and depth as a designer even more now, after his namesake has already showed signs of fading.

Why does every designer at HL have to go for those straps, gaudy colours and the tailoring shapes that somehow don’t look right anymore? Yes, Helmut did pink and straps, but it isn’t really his core or what I would pick out as the red threads if I were to do this collection today.

It’s so weird… on a collection level Helmut is SO simple in the end, so easy to decipher into building blocks that the only work left is to know how to redefine those elements for today’s fashion context and add some layers of personality to signal that this is now Helmut Lang by (insert name). Yet, no one seems to get it right at this brand.

To me some early seasons of Daniel Lee’s Bottega Veneta and Prada’s tailoring and nylon programs are examples of the modern Helmut Lang look. And not a single pink strap in sight there.

 

[GivenchyAddict]

They are not "hot" names for the CEO's but I'd rather have KVA or Rodolfo Paglialunga at HL at this point.

 

[Thefrenchy]

Who is Peter Do ??? this HL appointment is when I first saw his name. I see this Brenda Hashtag is a brand consultant. Her own personal style is good.

I guess Ill see him at NYFW. His ‘diffusion’ line is not wowing me.

Oh that Hashtag person is the brand consultant? All it takes is a black and white closet, I guess. Perhaps he should surround himself with people with higher qualifications than a twitter or tumblr account, because after seeing this it's more than needed.

 

[Tchi]

Grotesque.
Feels like watching a freakshow: the man who completely utterly misses thé point.
Please shut it all down and let this poor guy find another job

 

[perhydrol]

The Fakery Begins at New York Fashion Week
Plus: Peter Do’s Helmut Lang Debut didn’t quite hit the mark.
By Cathy Horyn

Two years ago, on the Greenpoint waterfront, Peter Do staged his first runway show and the assurance came striding through every look. He was a minimalist in the tradition of Jil Sander and Phoebe Philo, for whom he worked at Celine, but he put his own stamp on the form, with flowing white silk shirts printed with an exploded flower and airy suits in the palest pink and taupe that caught a modern vibe. A native of Vietnam, who arrived in the United States at age 14 and got turned onto fashion by “Project Runway,” Do could make his references slide between two cultures, like a long side-split tunic in pale pink worn over a lighter shade of pink trousers and finished off with a loose-fitting coat. He wasn’t heavy-handed, and that in itself suggested a substantial designer in the making. New York needed that more than ever.

So when Fast Retailing, the parent company of Uniqlo, announced that Do would be the new designer of Helmut Lang, another of its brands, it made sense. Do has 1990s minimalism on his brain; he knows the style as well as the cliches, and he seemed the best choice to unpack Lang and find a new expression for 2023.

That didn’t quite happen on Friday, as the New York spring collections got underway in the sweltering heat. Do certainly navigated Lang’s straight-line tailoring, opening with suits with a fuchsia stripe down the sides of pants, a nod to a well-known Lang collection. (The Austrian designer retired from fashion in 2005, after selling his brand.) And Do evoked Lang’s taste for ordinary garments, like T-shirts.

But everything is context. When Lang appeared on the Paris fashion scene in the late 1980s, almost everything was extremely glamorous, or, in the case of Thierry Mugler and Jean Paul Gaultier, an extremely camp version of glitz. Gianni Versace was doing his sexy version of glamour in Milan. Lang was a blunt counter to all that. And putting an ordinary undershirt or a utilitarian trench coat on a runway — and calling it Fashion — was startling at the time. It was new. Plus, the amazing thing about Lang was that his clothing made you feel differently when you wore it. It was in the specific cut of his suit jackets and coats. I remember a stylist telling me in the mid-90s, that they sort of grabbed you. Lang’s clothes delivered a different sexual charge — and you couldn’t quite put your finger on why.

We’re obviously at a point now where a T-shirt or a simple cotton shirt tucked into a pair of jeans means nothing. On Do’s runway, they were merely reiterations of Lang signifiers — devoid of meaning. The same was largely true of his tailoring. My thought while watching the show was: ‘These clothes are not cool. And they could be.’

Do obviously has a daunting task ahead of him if he wants to make a real project of Helmut Lang and have some fun in the process. He has to first get to the bottom of Lang’s sensibility, what made him so different, and then find a relatable beat in the present moment. Hedi Slimane did the smart thing when he took over Saint Laurent after Tom Ford, though his approach was initially annoying and seemingly lazy. Slimane located the moment in Yves Saint Laurent’s career when the designer was truly subversive, roughly 1965 to 1970, when he did the original tuxedo, the baby doll dresses, the Pop Art dresses, and the see-through black blouse. And, for me, that’s where Slimane found his modern link and then he took those styles further. Do is going to have to find his own point of contact with Lang and then express that spirit in a contemporary way, without respect for his legacy. Otherwise, we might as well go to Uniqlo.

thecut.com

 

[Thefrenchy]

^ Thank goodness for Cathy.

 

[RaisinBoy]

Whats the point of doing copy/paste of Helmut Lang’s original show and clothes, but much worse?!?!

 

[Lola701]

« Hedi Slimane did the smart thing when he took over Saint Laurent after Tom Ford, though his approach was initially annoying and seemingly lazy. »
Shady Cathy…She totally dismissed the 8 years gap between the two.

But she is right…
Anthony Vaccarello, Riccardo Tisci, Phoebe Philo, RAF, Nicolas Ghesquiere among others are the designers who have referenced Helmut Lang heavily on their work but there’s a different sensibility each time.

I really think that an European would get it. Because undeniably, the easy route is to go American Sportswear and truly, that what it was looking like. This was a DKNY from 10 years ago show with the HL tag on. Nobody wants that. The American Sportswear people aspire to is Ralph Lauren…

‘Helmut Lang was multilayered.

Maybe Peter Do has not found himself yet as a designer. Because let’s be honest, his clothes are very anonymous. Nothing distinctive in his approach in terms of cut or POV.
When you lacks POV, you deliver the kind of very scholar fashion he delivered.

 

[Tchi]

I always find it hilarious that in fashion today having shared breathing space with Phoebe Philo equals being the best candidate for the job. Taste and critical sense went missing.
I have just gone to check Peter do collection because I could not remember a single look from his collections.
I just went looking 20 secs ago and I still can’t remember anything.
It’s because his clothes, not bad clothes, are empty of content.
Anybody with a minimal conscience of fashion can tell that’s exactly the opposite of the emptiness of HL clothes.

 

[runner]

anyone who does HL is losing from the start, unless it is carol christian poell.
maybe even lang himself can hardly do it again now.
it's cruel though.

HL after all is about bodyhood or body itself.
speaking of the flesh by means of the clothes that are freezing/hardening ( classicism side) while dissolving (rinascimento notturno side).
convincing us that it is cool and sexy (erotic sometimes).

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer."
dylan thomas

 

[Squizree]

You truly need a special talent to make minimalism deliver the same punch as other trends and techniques. And I don't know if Peter Do if he's that talent...at least not yet. This is too characterless.

I also think that people forget that Helmut Lang was never just about the collections but also forward-thinking branding, which this is CLEARLY devoid of.

 

[andrew]

to quote the kids, this had no rizz and was incredibly mid.