Helmut Lang As Seen By Jeremy Deller

What sparked your interest in fashion?

Probably from my mom. She started out painting and studying art history in college when she was in her 40s — I was in elementary school, and she was always trying to get me to draw and paint with her. and was trying to encourage me to be more into abstract paintings and what she was doing, but I kept drawing clothes... I’m not really sure why I even started doing that but it was mostly just things I wanted to wear but couldn’t find as a seven, eight, or nine-year-old. Or things I couldn’t afford because a lot of the things my sister and I had were knock-off, off-brand versions of things, like Adidas with four stripes.

Why is sustainable fashion so important to you?

Initially my sister taught me how to thrift when I was younger, and that’s how I learned how to sew — from altering stuff we were thrifting that didn’t fit us. Mostly just hand sewing at first, so it was all very DIY looking and bad. Then I also started doing more deconstruction —it was more interesting to me using things that were already made and had a character and a life. I liked things that were stained or ripped. Then going to Pratt reinforced that idea, because they have a huge focus on sustainability and encouraged us to do more of that work. I tried not to do upcycling because I was wanting to do more high-tech things... I still am, but I think there is a way to do that sustainably. I’m always thinking about things in a bigger picture especially with sustainability because right now I feel like what I’m doing is on such a small scale.

How would you describe your brand, and what makes it unique?

The biggest thing for me right now, besides the sustainability and upcycling part of the brand, is the fit is very unisex. The pants have been such a "magic fit" thing for every model I’ve worked with or client that I’ve had. That’s something I’m really proud of because the pattern making for that is not easy. It’s really something that you experience when you try something on, I think that unisex can be for a lot of people, like "let’s just make it boxy or oversized". I do have some pieces like that but I don’t think it has to be that way and you can still have more fitted garments that do fit more bodies and there are different ways to do it. I would say everything is pretty experimental with the textiles too because of just the nature of it. Besides the fabrics we use, we are also adding on top of it with the hardware, embroidery, or the rhinestones, or whatever. There are little details that you wouldn’t actually see from just looking at the lookbook and you’re going to have to see in person. 

How was it designing pieces for Rico Nasty? How and why do you feel creatively aligned with them?

That was really exciting and really fast. We had two weeks to make everything and it was all custom. Some of that was like a first-time thing for me — the leather painting I had done before on a smaller scale and then we painted that whole look basically; of the pink star top then the black and pink skirt. She’s really easy to work with. It was kind of funny, I was talking with their stylist mostly,Lindsey Hartman, and we kind of just picked up on each other’s vibe really quickly.

What inspires your creative process? 

Everything is pretty textile driven; I usually start with a palette that I’m into at the moment then I will source fabrics based on that color palette but they don’t actually have to be a part of one season or whatever. It’s more of just a feel/touch kind of thing. At the beginning of the pandemic that was tough because I was actually scared to go into stores. I didn’t want to fabric shop. For that collection from 2021, it was pretty much all stuff from my own closet that I just cut up & my roommates at the time.

What inspiration has New York provided you in your creative process?

There’s a lot of energy here. I definitely need breaks from this place, as many people do. I have often just wanted to leave completely but then I miss it so much and I’m like why did I leave for three days? I have been here for ten years so I think this is probably home now. I think I have found a nice community of creative people here that really ties me here... there is also such a hub of different cultural things to do here. So many museums, music, and everything. You can go out every day and find something new. It’s really easy to find inspiration here. 

What do you see in the future for your brand?

Figuring out a better way to source these textiles in a consistent way and I still want to make one of a kind but, for example, the D-ring leather skirt is made from slightly different black leathers every single time I’m making it. It’s still the same pattern, the same style, and it’s gonna come out pretty much the same. I also want to get more into costume design, work with performers or musicians. Do more customs for special events; that’s definitely a big one. There are a lot of people I would like to work with right now; one of the big ones is Narcissister. Some sort of performance artist, someone who has fun wearing more of a costumey piece on stage, someone who is already into fashion and wants to move around and jump around, perform in the piece. That’s the most exciting thing, to see something actually being used and not just like worn to the coffee shop. I want to see this on a stage or a bigger platform.

Do you remember how you felt after having your first show? — Spring/Summer 2015 Pratt Institute’s final thesis collection show — how it was received, how it’s grown since then?

I think it’s funny that I had to do eight looks and I thought that was a lot... I was like, "eight? That’s insane!" Now I think I do that in one month. I feel good looking back and being like “Ok I have done a lot since then”. Time goes very quickly and I don’t really pause and do too much reflection. I reference my own sketches from then, but do it in a different way. The sketches you can interpret them in so many different ways... It’s nice to have those things still there, which is also why I keep important samples.

What inspired you to add touches of embroidery that came from digitized scans of your personal journals collected over the years?

I was inspired by Agnes Richtor’s jacket, it’s in a museum in Germany. She was a mental patient in the 1800s, there’s a book about her. She emborderied her whole life story on this jacket before she died. Like the inside and the outside. It was her straight jacket from the ward that she was in. They committed her for basically no reason and she wanted people to know her story before she died. All of her writings were kind of scrawled onto the jacket and really hard to read but I thought it was really beautiful that she did that. She spent her whole time doing that all by hand. 

Can you explain the experience of someone wearing something that is so personal to you on their body, using it as a form of their expression?

Again going back, I was going through my old sketchbooks like, “Oh, I forgot I wrote all this dumbass poetry". It wasn’t even that I necessarily liked my own poetry, it was more like I felt like I wasn’t putting enough of myself into my work and wanted to put a little bit of a personal touch on it. I didn’t want people to actually read it, I abstracted it on purpose. My handwriting is really catscratch but I made it super small, just layered it on top of each other, or cut it so that you could maybe just read a few words at a time... I’ve had people who I don’t even know very well being like “I feel very much myself in your clothes, I’ve never felt like this in anyone else’s clothes.” It is really affirming for me to be like people feel really good wearing my pieces, I want to hear more of that. I love hearing that I want to see more of that.

Who do you recall being your first fashion icon?

I think everyone in my family has pretty good style. I still steal clothes from both my parents. My dad was a punk, skater, and a hippie. He taught me music growing up, that was his creative side. He can play every instrument. He has good style, I have a lot of his old clothes from the 80s, a lot of punk stuff. My dad is kind of the same size as me; he wears stuff I like.