The Tamesis
Editor’s note: The much-missed Helmut Lang is a subject new exhibition MAK in Vienna. As part of Vogue Runway’s ongoing effort to document the history of fashion shows, we’re kicking off the new year by adding as complete a digital show as possible to the site. The Fall 1997 ready-to-wear collection was launched on March 13, 1997 in Paris.
Backstories, references and biographies became increasingly important in the Parisian fashion world in 1997, with the arrival of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano at Givenchy and Christian Dior respectively. Helmut Lang has always been an outlier in that he spun stories primarily about the making of clothes, the selection and manipulation of fabrics, but his shows were not without the aroma of suggestive scenes.
Kirsten Owen opened the show wearing a chunky ivory coat in this style Fashion Voted this season’s most popular item. While that tailored piece was eye-catching, underneath she wore a white knit top with a loose pleat at the waist that stood out even more. The belt was an accessory that emerged from men’s formal wear and was later transformed into everyday use, as well as the more glaring harness, the “mid-layer” adopted by Virgil Abloh twenty years later.
Protection and wrapping overlap here. The straps that extend around the waist and one arm may refer to a soft restraint, or a sartorial embrace. At their most extreme, Lang’s coverings have a mummy-like quality, but for the most part the designer’s use of elastic and draping seems to exist somewhere between Japanese furoshiki and Christo, only here the coverings are neither objects nor monuments, but human bodies. The use of elastic creates a smooth, imperfect fit that’s mildly awkward and feels particularly human. There was also tenderness in the tulle pieces that floated in the air as the model walked, which one contemporary critic called “angel wings.” These accessories are perhaps best represented by the soft duvet pieces – especially the Stella Tennant sling-over-the-shoulder duvet piece.
