Helmut Lang Fall 2022 Ready-to-Wear Collection

The Y2K time warp has snagged many contemporary brands of late, but Helmut Lang remains an outlier. While Lang the man was at his peak circa 2000, he wasn’t a practitioner of the tweeny, pastel-hued, velour with sequins look. If he had been it isn’t likely he’d be the fashion god he’s considered today, up there on Mount Olympus with Martin Margiela, another designer who exited the industry at the height of his success and fame.

What we think of as Y2K style was less a product of the runways than it is an artifact of the glossy celebrity magazines—US Weekly and the like—that still dominated the media landscape in those early internet days. All that to say, Lang the brand circa 2022 is sticking to his codes.

The foundation of the new collection is tailoring, streamlined and minimal, with an elasticized double waistband treatment bearing the house logo. Lang was known for traditional sartorial techniques like strips of rubber on the inner waistband to hold pants in place, and the logo is lifted from his inner waistbands, but for the uninitiated, i.e. the young customers this brand is targeting, it’s likely to read more like exposed underwear. That’s probably not a bad thing.

Co-opting military uniform was another essential part of Lang’s repertoire. He made the parka a fashion item. Pre-Helmut, you couldn’t walk into a designer boutique and score one; it was the Army & Navy store, the vintage shop, or nothing. The brand’s fall 2022 parka is sharply done, with a useful button-out shearling lining. A cropped shearling bomber also looked on-brand.

Rounding out the collection are dresses that play with sheer and opaque, and silk slips with lace insets of the sort seen from a lot of other contemporary labels. To this old Helmut-head, the interest here lies in the tailoring and outerwear.


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