Peter Do for Helmut Lang: what to remember from the most anticipated show of New York Fashion Week

Fashion loves to talk about a time that those under twenty cannot know to dress tomorrow. As further proof, the Helmut Lang maison, so decisive for the Nineties and gone unnoticed since the departure of its founder in 2005 (apart from a unique collection by the sulphurous Shayne Oliver of Hood by Air for spring-summer 2018), reborn from its subversive and refined ashes under the new impetus of Peter Do. This young Vietnamese designer based in New York created his own brand in 2018, has been showing in the official calendar since 2021 and is already among the most promising designers of his generation. It is for his radical, minimalist and artistic aesthetic that he was chosen to take over Helmut Lang (owned by the Fast Retailing group which also owns Uniqlo, Theory, J Brand, Comptoir des Cotonniers and Princess Tam·tam). On September 8, 2023, Peter Do presented his first Helmut Lang collection for spring-summer 2024 as part of New York Fashion Week.

How Peter Do paid homage to Helmut Lang for his first collection at the helm of the house

The spiritual son of Raf Simons and Phoebe Philo, Peter Do produced a first collection for Helmut Lang in the form of a reference to the house’s heritage. Like the homage to the cult campaign of the yellow taxis so New York that here they become games of car seat belts that zigzag on the tailoring edgy, infusing it with a bit of bondage spirit.

Just as the founder of the house had invited his friend, the conceptual artist Jenny Holzer, to sign an installation in the form of an artistic message to celebrate the inauguration of his first store at 80 Greene Street, Peter Do reinterprets this idea in the form of slogan T-shirts designed by Vietnamese author Ocean Vuong: “ Your car was my first bedroom / Our clothes on the floor like trampled flowers. »

And to make sure we understood who the author was, the model who opened the show had a copy in her hand On Earth For a short time we are amazingthe writer’s masterpiece published in 2019 (and translated in France with the title guez A brief moment of splendor).

Peter Do for Helmut Lang or the poetics of the automotive movement as a queer refuge

But to understand this metaphor that revolves around the car and what it says about the identity of the creator, we still need to read the sublime note of intent, signed by Ocean Vuong, obviously:

“Peter’s choice to build his Helmut Lang show around the car is entirely appropriate. In the hands of homosexuals, the car is not only the vehicle for the realization of the American dream by the family unit, for which it has proliferated, not only the symbol of linear industrial progress, but also, for us, a place to hide from the world and be more than we were allowed to be there. The car is the place where we insinuate ourselves, often at night, the vehicle itself perhaps ‘borrowed’ from our parents, to get to destinations that are not places at all, but the edges of the roads, the dark side of the bridges, a field teeming with flowers at a crossroads of paths, and we turn off the engine to kiss or cry or talk to each other without whispering, only to finally cry out with muffled joy and pain as the stars flash at us through the windshield. The car becomes a place that benefits from the miracle of movement, a room that is also a portal that allows us to escape from this world to the next without leaving our body.

[…] We are proud to invite you to come on board and join us on this journey. And like all walks, there’s nowhere to go but the trail itself. In Vietnamese we call it di chup gio. Catch the wind. He then reaches his hand out the window as you feel the warm breeze fill your palm. »

Looking at it more closely, it could almost be a collection of Peter Dos for your home, if you forget the more pronounced winks, signs that the transplant has everything to do, even if perhaps he is still a little too wise. Knowing that the house belongs to the Fast Retailing group, you can even bet that the prices of the new Helmut Lang will not be completely unreasonable.

As the young designer presents a collection for his own brand on September 26, 2023 as part of Paris Fashion Week, it will be an opportunity to observe how he intends to better distinguish his two activities. And perhaps further radicalize his poetic aesthetic, both New York and dotted with Asian accents.