Helmut Lang returns with a collaboration with Saint Laurent

Although it is now an everyday matter, in the 1990s Helmut Lang pioneered collaboration with other designers, through partnerships with artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Jenny Holzer. Since then, collaborations have become part of the fashion industry – if not tell that to Raf Simons, Heron Preston or Virgil Abloh.

Lang said goodbye to fashion in 2005 to focus exclusively on art. However, he now partners with Saint Laurent in an artistic collaboration. As part of the Rive Droite initiative – the brand’s new creative and curated commercial space – by Creative Director Anthony Vaccarello. Lang will dig into the YSL archives to create a series of modern sculptures, which will be exhibited for the first time in Paris and then at Saint Laurent’s Rive Droite store in Los Angeles.

“I’ve been a fan of Helmut for years,” Vaccarello told Business Of Fashion. “For my generation, he’s the ultimate designer of the ’90s. I consider him on the same level as someone like Coco Chanel because of the way he brought reality into fashion, something that everyone keeps copying. Helmut was the first to oppose artificial promotional messages, his vision and artistic direction brought everyone back to the real essence of fashion.

Lang’s partnership with Saint Laurent will re-imagine the decades-old legacy of the leading Parisian fashion house.