Helmut Lang

Helmut Lang, born in 1956 in Vienna, is an artist and former fashion designer best known for creating his minimalist namesake label, based in New York. Helmut Lang had massive successes in the 1990s with its luxurious minimalism, popular denim collections, and deconstructed designs. Lang started his fashion career in Vienna with a made-to-measure studio in 1977. Through an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, initiated by the Austrian government, Lang showed his first full collection in Paris in 1986, marking the birth of the Helmut Lang label. After nine years in Paris, Lang moved his label to New York, where it is still headquartered. The brand was the first in fashion to embrace the internet, live streaming shows as early as 1998. After selling the brand to Prada Group in 2004, Helmut Lang retired from fashion, pursuing a career in art instead. Lang's departure meant the end of the brand’s peak, but vintage Helmut Lang jeans, hoodies and jackets are still in demand. Link Theory currently owns the brand, with Vietnamese designer Peter Do as the brand's creative director since 2023.