Helmut Lang is a cult figure and, despite leaving fashion in 2005, his legacy lives on. Everything he made carried his distinct fingerprint - from his jeans to his perfumes. He was hyper-attentive to detail and Viennese through and through - he was born there in 1956.
Having shown on the Paris catwalk once, Helmut Lang returned to Vienna until 1997, when he finally moved to New York. Austerity and cerebral couture have characterised his work throughout. He was one of the first designers to embrace the internet and, in 1998, broadcast his new show on it.
• Lang only decided to move into fashion after he failed to find the perfect jacket and T-shirt in the shops and was forced to make his own
• Prada bought a 49 per cent stake in the Helmut Lang business in 1999. Unhappy without 100 per cent creative control, Lang walked out five years later
• Since then the brand has carried on without him. In 2006, Prada sold it to link Theory Holdings Co, which hired design duo Michael and Nicole Colovos to explore Lang's signature high-tech fabrics and modernist looks and colours - but, said Theory president Andrew Rosen at the time: "The door is always open for Lang if he chose to return"
"I wanted to be an artist but I was so in awe," Helmut Lang explained to Vogue in September 1998. "I had a Catholic education, which leaves you with a great big helping of guilt and unworthiness that I went to business school instead." Ultimately he has ended up with the reputation of an artist.
In August 2008 an exhibition of his art goes on show at Kestnergesellshaft in Hannover, Germany.
Having shown on the Paris catwalk once, Helmut Lang returned to Vienna until 1997, when he finally moved to New York. Austerity and cerebral couture have characterised his work throughout. He was one of the first designers to embrace the internet and, in 1998, broadcast his new show on it.
• Lang only decided to move into fashion after he failed to find the perfect jacket and T-shirt in the shops and was forced to make his own
• Prada bought a 49 per cent stake in the Helmut Lang business in 1999. Unhappy without 100 per cent creative control, Lang walked out five years later
• Since then the brand has carried on without him. In 2006, Prada sold it to link Theory Holdings Co, which hired design duo Michael and Nicole Colovos to explore Lang's signature high-tech fabrics and modernist looks and colours - but, said Theory president Andrew Rosen at the time: "The door is always open for Lang if he chose to return"
"I wanted to be an artist but I was so in awe," Helmut Lang explained to Vogue in September 1998. "I had a Catholic education, which leaves you with a great big helping of guilt and unworthiness that I went to business school instead." Ultimately he has ended up with the reputation of an artist.
In August 2008 an exhibition of his art goes on show at Kestnergesellshaft in Hannover, Germany.
