ThE WaNtEd FaShIoNs....

BIOGRAPHY:

The Past and the Present
Fashion Designer Helmut Lang was born in 1956 in Vienna, Austria. Before turning to fashion design, Lang went to a local trade academy and was trained to become a businessman. His career switch to fashion was accompanied by the opening of his first own studio in 1977. In the mid-eighties he became a celebrated designer with his first ready-to-wear collections in his hometown Vienna.

Soon after the first success in Austria, he started to show women's clothes in Paris, France in 1986. In 1987 followed a men's collection. Lang switches back and forth between Vienna and Paris, designing in his atelier in Vienna and consulting with his agent in Paris.

Today, Lang is considered one of the pace-makers of fashion design. Lang has been labeled a deconstructionist, a futurist, and a minimalist, always attributed with fashion trends that soon after will be adopted by the fashion bcommunity. His creations have inspired a whole generation of new designers, like the new talents from Beligum, namely Dries van Noten or Dirk Bikkembergs. He uses uncommon materials and cuttings for clothes that are not loud in appearence, but unavoidable disturbing in nature. His designs are casual, but not sloppy and yet, they bear a certain harshness. Unlike his Italian colleagues, Lang undresses women with his clothes not with a voluptuous gesture, he does so with clinical coolness.

Lang intends to avoid a subdivision of his designs into different brands. He wants to concentrate on strengthening the brand name "Helmut Lang". The introduction of his underwear collection in 1995 and the jeans line in 1996 is seen as a move to broaden his customer base with more readily available and less exclusive products.

Although his designs, as well as his fashion shows gain much attention publically, the person Helmut Lang avoids to become a public figure. That's why there are hardly any photographs of the designer published (see our picture).
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Selected Lines

* Helmut Lang Men's and Women's Clothes
* Helmut Lang Underwear, since 1995
* Helmut Lang Jeans, since 1996
* Helmut Lang Protective Eyewear, since 1996
* Helmut Lang Shoes, since 1995
* Helmut Lang Accessoires, since 1996
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Selected Awards and Recognitions

* In 1993, Lang was appointed professor for fashion design at the Vienna College for the Applied Arts.
Address
Headquarters
Atelier Helmut Lang
Esslinggasse 5
1010 Wien, Austria
Tel.: (+1) 5351493
FAX.: (+1) 5331202
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Selected Boutiques
Munich Boutique
Kardinal-Faulhaber Str.3
80333 Munchen, Germany
Tel.: (+089) 29162996 Vienna Boutique
Seilergasse 6
1010 Wien, Austria Milan Boutique
Via San Andrea
20212 Milan, Italy

RUNWAY SHOWS
Helmut Lang W