/fa/ - Fashion

>>9277938

special thanks to timber for this one

"ABOUT Helmut Lang's major influence over the fashion of the last 15 years there is little doubt. Consumers can thank him for flat-front pants, the number of buttons on men's suits - first three, more recently two - and the spiraling prices of designer jeans and T-shirts. An entire culture of prestige denim was born from Mr. Lang's low-rise jeans with intricate washes, for which he dared to charge close to $200 in the 1990's.

So powerful was his creative leadership that when he said he would show his collections in Manhattan ahead of European rivals, most American designers followed suit, and New York Fashion Week was permanently rescheduled.

Yet this designer, who was once a driving force of minimalism, who was profiled in The New Yorker and who advertised his name in thick black letters on the top of taxicabs, has found himself in a state of free fall, with his empire being dismantled piece by piece.

Four months ago Mr. Lang left the company that bears his name after long-running discontent with the Prada Group, which owns it. In early May, Prada began talks to sell off the business, describing it as unprofitable. This week Prada told managers at the designer's stores in New York and Paris they would be shuttered in July.

(...)

When asked of his plans at a recent benefit in Manhattan for the International Center of Photography, Mr. Lang smiled in his typically opaque way and said only one word, 'Patience.'"

- THE NEW YORK TIMES, MAY 26, 2005.