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Helmut Lang: Gentlemanly Excellence
By: Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
PARIS, Jul 3, 2002/ FWD/ --- If you really want to dress like a modern day gentleman, shop
at Helmut Lang.
In the most eagerly anticipated show of the weekend, the Austrian master returned to Paris
Sunday with a powerfully inventive collection that will be both influential and commercial.
What’s great about Lang is that his clothes grant their wearer authority yet never look stiff.
He’s a gent not a bore, classy, even classical - yet still subversive and creative.
The collection he showed in the Espace Commines, his first catwalk event in Paris in
four years, had plenty of influences ranging from medieval to S&M, but the results were all
very Helmut.
He opened with a squadron of redingotes, worn with ribbed knits, tight tops and great new
perforated town shoes.
Cut looser than normal and shown in white or navy blue cotton the redingotes were all great,
especially when worn with leather forearms.
Come to think of it, a Lang is probably the single most important item of apparel in any
man’s wardrobe, and if you don’t own one, rectify the situation quickly.
Helmut experimented with some pretty bizarre choices of material - bubble wrap, waxed raffia
and even plastic laundry bag material, but the resulting bomber jackets and windbreakers
had a certain finesse.
Weird maybe, but wearable also.
As Doris Day crooned "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps," on the soundtrack, Lang unleashed a
finale led by seven guys in suits.
They were lean but never mean -- urban clothes for Lang’s fellow overachievers.
All we can say is welcome back to Paris, Helmut.
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