Deep Dive

Fashion is relentless, and it is fickle. But few designers have experienced its frailties like Miguel Adrover. He entered fashion in the 90s amidst the peak of the “anti-fashion” movement, when the likes of Martin Margiela, Rei Kawakubo and the Antwerp Six had shifted the lens of luxury fashion from the antiquated ritz of legacy brands to a sharpened modernity that deconstructed the normative language of fashion design. Following this pivotal creative renewal, much of the fresh talent was swiftly bought out by massive retail conglomerates, namely LVMH and Kering. At the turn of the century, the focus shifted to unfettered commercialism, and independent designers were left to fend for themselves. As the fashion industry endured an identity crisis, Miguel Adrover cut through the confusion and chaos with sincerity and integrity. 

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Born in 1965, Miguel Adrover grew up in the village of Calogne, a quaint seaside town of little more than 1000 people on the island of Majorca, Spain. He dropped out of school when he was 12 to work on the family farm enveloped by towering almond trees and livestock. After he served his mandatory military service from ages 17 to 19,  he made frequent trips to London, where he saw the birth of the punk and New Romantics movement. The vivid expressionism that bands like Bauhaus and The Cult gave through their moody music and sensual style inspired the Spaniard. Invigorated by the fresh urban energy that diverged from his humble roots, Adrover made up his mind to go to New York City. 

When Adrover arrived in New York in 1991, the city was in bad shape. Following a series of social and economic fallouts in the 80s, including the crack epidemic and AIDS crisis, the ensuing decade was wrought with sweeping disarray. Adrover took up work as a janitor and lived in a tiny East Village basement apartment with rodents for roommates. As he settled into the city, he was satiated by its vivid multiculturalism. The streets of New York are the ultimate mingling of social class, where a rich man in a perfectly tailored bespoke suit with a job in the financial district is seated next to a homeless man nodding off on the subway. 

Miguel Adrover infront of Horn NY shop featured in Harper's Bazaar.

Miguel Adrover infront of his NY boutique Horn

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Miguel Adrover and Kate Moss for Alexander McQueen.

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Despite his lack of formal training, Adrover quickly found his footing in the local fashion scene. In 1995, he opened Horn Boutique with Douglas Hobbs, a small store that sold experimental brands like Asfour and Alexander McQueen. Adrover and McQueen had been close friends dating back to the former’s travels London. McQueen actually received the call for Givenchy while he was at Adrover’s home in Majorca, and the two arranged photoshoots on the island including an editorial for McQueen’s “Highland Rape” collection that was deemed too explicit for the press. He worked on a few of the Londoner’s early collections, sleeping in the studio for months at a time and assisting with interns. As compensation, Adrover received pieces from the collections that were sold at Horn, and the boutique soon became a hub for avant-garde designers from all over the world. After a few years of owning the store, Adrover was encouraged to take the next step into design.

The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center in the Lower East Side held Miguel Adrover’s debut collection, “Manaus-Chiapas NYC.” Dim lighting offered a faint glow, and tall reeds sheltered either side of the thin plywood catwalk. A nude model adorned an unsettling mask made from dozens of sticks, quickly flanked by makeshift tunics and dresses with submachine guns slung across the body. The show depicted the journey of refugees making their way to the United States from South America: in Manaus, they dressed themselves in the skin of a 15-foot python as they fled the industrialization of the Brazilian Amazon; they later armed themselves with guns and bullet straps during the civil war in Chiapas, Mexico; in New York, one wore a suit made from a hundred-year-old American flag and an unfinished dress pieced together with newspaper prints. Another fashioned a miniskirt out of a Louis Vuitton handbag. The most alluring piece was a dirtied “I <3 NY” shirt with ruffled poof sleeves, which poetically juxtaposed the social cachet of a mundane tourist shirt with something typically reserved for ballrooms.

Photos of Miguel Adrover's first runway Manaus-Chiapas NYC in 1999.

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The collection’s overt political sentiments were a far cry from the standard fashion fare of self-awareness discarded for escapism and bliss engendered by ignorance. Adrover was not shy to acknowledge the pain suffered in the real world, a disposition he maintained throughout his career. While the subject matter in this show was intense, Adrover’s references to non-European heritage were quite refreshing for such a eurocentric industry. Though designers have always explored different cultures, it’s often rooted in a sense of “exoticism,” while Adrover maintained a certain authenticity owed to his frequent global passages.

Word spread like wildfire that there was a hot new item in fashion, but the buzz hadn’t filled Adrover’s pocket. He roamed the garment district on his bicycle at night, searching for discarded fabric bolts and scraps wherever he could find them. Ironically, he was only able to stage his second show with a $2000 reimbursement from Vogue when a few of his samples were stolen from a Conde Nast closet.

A dollar bill stamped with an invitation marked AW 00’s “Midtown.” A supremely talented pauper is a fashion editor’s wet dream, and returning to the same venue as his debut, Adrover presented to a crowd that included Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington of American Vogue. The catwalk depicted a city intersection, with street traffic and scuttling rain as ambient accents to the soundtrack of soft classical music.



The collection asserted Miguel Adrover’s presence. The looks featured a heavy dose of asymmetry that mirrored New York’s polyphonic nature. High-low hemlines and bias-cut panels were used on soft knits and raw canvas alike. The shoulders of a navy sweater were replaced with Yankees ball caps, trousers with an Hermes belt resewn at the inseam then slashed and worked into a jacket. A model walked the runway with an inside-out Burberry trench coat, a gift from friend and patternmaker Peter Hidalgo. This caught Burberry’s attention, and the designer swiftly received a copyright lawsuit that was later dismissed. The collection’s standout was a tailored Victorian coat made from the salvaged and dirtied mattress covering of his neighbor, Quentin Crisp, who’d recently passed. His possessions were donated to the curb, including this mess of a bed that gave Adrover’s team rashes in the studio. 

Quentin Crisp Coat made from Miguel Adrover's recently deceased neighbors' mattress for A/W 2000 Midtown

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Items from Miguel Adrover's A/W 2000 Midtown

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After his first two collections, the Spainard was a certifiable star. Adrover’s team worked to produce well-made garments that featured exceptional tailoring. Recalling Martin Margiela’s similar disregard for conventional luxury standards, Adrover was insistent in preserving the memory attached to garments. Linda Dresner, a boutique owner, told AnotherMag, “Miguel was the innovator of originality. With him, old became new again.” Following a much-needed investment from Pegasus Group, a burgeoning retail conglomerate at the turn of the century, Adrover was poised for international success. 

Yet four years later, he would be forced to close his label. 

The first leg was kicked without warning. After several visits to Egypt, the perpetual foreigner found beauty in the middle-eastern garb of sweeping, floor-length caftans, tunics, jodhpurs, and turbans. Turned off by fashion’s sexualized vanity, he looked to the modest and restrained style he discovered abroad. Both Fall 2000’s “Meet East” and Spring 2001’s “Utopia” featured these attires in direct conversation with Western clothing, hallmarked in the former by an old Coca-Cola shirt worn over a bleached and distressed pinstripe caftan that could’ve been hundreds of years old. The fabrics were some of the designer’s most muddied and aged, as if they were drawn straight from the Nile. The latter collection drew the same references, and the throughline of this “East meets West” moment was held together by a refined sense of elegance, a quality that Adrover maintained no matter how hectic his various inspirations were.


Cocacola tunic dress in AnOther Magazine from Miguel Adrover A/W 2001

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Cocacola tunic dress on runway for Miguel Adrover A/W 2001

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Patchwork vest in Another Magazine from Miguel Adrover S/S 2001. 

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Patchwork vest runway look from Miguel Adrover S/S 2001. 

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Military uniform style look by Miguel Adrover from S/S 2001 in AnOther Magazine. 

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Military uniform style look by Miguel Adrover from the S/S 2001 runway

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It was the worst timing imaginable. “Utopia” was shown in New York on September 8, 2001. A frenzied public, American and international alike, accused Adrover of being sympathetic towards the Taliban’s misogyny and conservatism. Thanks in part due to the economic fallout of 9/11 alongside the controversy, Pegasus Group closed his label. 

Financial setbacks set the tone for the rest of his career. Adrover returned independently a year later with his Spring 2003 collection, “Citizen of the World,” where he rediscovered the streets of New York. The notion of global citizenry was reinforced explicitly by a caftan printed with the United Nations logo. Adrover decided to show both menswear and womenswear together, a move that further illustrates his cultural savvy. The collection anticipated the streetwear that would dominate the 2000s: baggy t-shirt dresses next to tailored suits, bandanas and do-rags with long jean shorts and tank tops, a set of pinstripe vest and shorts layered over a navy sweatsuit. 

But Adrover just wasn’t turning a profit. At this point he was self-sufficient, using cash from his savings account to stage presentations. The stores that still trusted him had trouble receiving the orders on time, and when they did arrive, customers weren’t impressed. Linda Dresner, a boutique owner who believed in the talent, reckoned with the reality of it all: “But these have been difficult times, and although his clothes were always very handsome and beautifully made, they were not commercially easy. Business was at a point where we didn't feel like going out on a limb anymore.”

Miguel Adrover United Nations Logo tunic from S/S 2003. 

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Another look from Miguel Adrover S/S 2003. 

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By this point, Adrover was showing only once a year, with the fashion calendar proving to be overwhelming. On his last leg, Adrover delivered Spring 2005’s “The Americans.” An exhaustive 96 look collection that illustrated the “Old West,” alluding to the rich visual history of cowboys and Native Americans. Many of Adrover’s hallmarks were present: a truly diverse casting of models including meso-American children hand-in-hand, strong tailoring, and an exploration of cultural clothing. Native motifs were blended with western suede and prairie gingham prints alongside classic American prep. A series of garments featured handmade cave-paintings of hands and buffalos. When a brand presents almost 100 looks, it’s hard not to think of it as throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. If this sense of desperation wasn’t gathered during the show, it was made quite apparent when an exuberant Adrover, hand-in-hand with friends, ran across the stage wearing a shirt that said, “anyone seen a backer?”

"Anyone seen a backer?" Miguel Adrover closes S/S 2005.

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Out of money and out of spirit, Adrover said goodbye to America. “Bush was re-elected and I gave up,” he told Colleen Nika. “I didn't want to live in a country torn by war I didn't believe in anymore. And I spent all my savings.” In his struggle for an uncompromising artistic vision, the fashion industry and bottom-line won out. For Adrover, the “why” was far more important than the “how.” After 14 years in New York, “it was time to go.”

By 2012, the fashion industry had morphed into the bloated monster we know today. The internet accelerated discourse and the global conversation forced business to move at a breakneck pace. The semiotics of clothing have diluted into simplistic symbols of social status, the same logos that Adrover mocked over a decade earlier. In an interview with Byronesque, Adrover lamented, “It’s hard to be a part of the industry in the way it works today. [Everything] is related to [corporations], related to [promoting] products that are not necessary, but we cannot get enough of it. You can never get enough of what you don’t need.” When asked what needs to change, the first thing he said was for LVMH to go into bankruptcy.

Eight years after his last independent collection, Adrover returned to New York with Fall 2012’s “Out of My Mind.” To create something fresh, he lost contact with everything related to fashion, removing himself entirely from the ecosystem to explore a new vocabulary for clothing. In the same theater as his rapturous debut, he looked back to the Amazon where he imagined a tribe of natives finding a downed airplane with luggage scattered about. In a moment of complete circularity and sustainability, clothes were used just as they were: Adrover did not create any new garments, nor utilize patterns and sewing machines, sidestepping conventional construction and extracting beauty from the banality of everyday clothes. 


Miguel Adrover packs up and moves to Majorca.

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With no intention to sell the collection, Adrover was freed of any notion of compromise. His total decontextualization of fashion informed the collection- much of the layering was indecipherable in brilliant manipulations and contortions of garments. As with any Miguel Adrover collection, there was an undercurrent of cultural references. Here, he drew inspiration from Western Asian costume, most notably in the knitwear and hats worn by Yemeni goat herders. Always one for humor, some of the footwear was made of hands shaped into middle fingers and devil horns. 

The return of the beloved designer was an emotional deluge for everyone involved, none more so than Adrover himself. 2012 felt like a curtain call for an artist who wanted, and needed, one last go at things. Afterwards, Adrover retreated to Majorca and settled into a hermetic lifestyle.

Years later, while exploring the surrounding countryside of his family farm, Adrover stumbled across a covering that opened to a 300-year-old snake-infested well. The former designer shifted focus to photography, using the well as a studio for its intense lighting that recalls the dramatic shadows of “Caravaggio’s light.” Much of his new work shares the same experimentation with volume and drape established in his fashion design. 

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Miguel Adrover wears personal archive for self portraits.

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The inspiration that led Adrover to “Out of My Mind,” that compulsion to step back from the vulgarity of society, finds itself in much of his daily life– no drugs, no sex, and no cellphone for well over a decade. Yet contemporary culture often eschews these sentiments. In retrospect, Adrover’s eccentricity was that of a frantic seer shouting warnings of the impending apocalypse at indifferent passersby. Adrover’s influence extends into much of fashion today: Demna Gvalsalia clearly follows in the pursuit of a certain high-low fusion; Adrover’s raw, unfiltered approach and muddied romanticism is evident in someone like Elena Velez, a young designer dealing with the same financial problems and backlash that faced Adrover; and Adrover’s instinctual use of diverse and inclusive modeling is now the expectation. 

In the age of conveyor belt clothing and 2-D identities, any unease with the status quo is remedied with insipid commercialism. One must accept these terms; there’s little room for those who question the spectacle. 

Fashion could not afford Miguel Adrover.


Nash Hill

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Miguel Adrover’s abrupt career illustrates the promise and pitfalls that follow authenticity in fashion.

The Illumination of Miguel Adrover

Tokyo-based magazine Sabukaru invited us to their Paris Showroom to view the work of several designers moving fashion forward on their own terms.

PFW Sabukaru Showroom: The Next Generation

How the British designer is building a new language of masculinity.

Why Menswear Needs Craig Green

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While often overlooked for flashier, more profitable ready to wear shows, Paris Fashion Week still remains a key destination for more niche designers to visit and display their collections. Out of these smaller brands, an undeniable subcategory is that of avant-garde darkwear. Among this crop of designers, Isaac Sellam stands out, with his namesake label, Isaac Sellam Experience, being a must visit for those who enjoy avant-garde darkwear. To many, Sellam’s work represents the pinnacle of avant-garde design, with cerebral yet handcrafted garments defining the brand. 

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Years before he began his showing in Paris, Sellam already had a keen interest in fashion, with his first experience in tailoring coming at the age of 16. As Sellam noted in an [interview with Leclaireur](https://leclaireur.com/en-int/blogs/news/isaac-sellam-experience-l-amour-brut), the reason for this foray into the world of fashion was spurred by not having the means to buy a Chevignon down jacket. Rather than merely accepting the fact he couldn’t afford the jacket, Sellam instead set out to create a version of his own. Soon after, requests for jackets began to stream in, with the then teenager initially selling the jackets to friends, and then a wider audience.

In 2002, Sellam’s 15 years of professional experience with leather and pattern making would culminate in him founding his eponymous label, Isaac Sellam Experience. Working with prestigious tanneries and applying his expertise, Sellam focused his label on leather products (though the label does offer other textiles as well). Picking up steam over the years, the label has begun to offer more and more, with the launch of his diffusion line 69 by Isaac Sellam as well as other diffusion lines. As the designer [explained to Raw Looks](https://rawlooks.com/magazine/isaac-sellam-launches-69-by-isaac-sellam/) this diffusion line is meant to be both playful and to offer his works to a wider audience, while still retaining the quality and expertise that go into the mainline label. As with other avant-garde darkwear designers, Sellam’s label often makes the trip to various fashion weeks, presenting the collections in private, away from the pomp and ostentatiousness of the RTW shows. In this more intimate environment, Sellam and his team present their vision of what fashion can be.

Isaac Sellam S/S24 showroom, photographed by Pikoi.

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Along with the truly artisan approach to his label’s works, the designer's garments are often instantly recognizable, with the metal spine staples being a key motif of Sellam’s clothing. [According to Sellam](https://leclaireur.com/en-int/blogs/news/isaac-sellam-experience-l-amour-brut), the metal spine motif happened quite by accident, with Sellam adopting the staples pattern from a rug his friend owned. Inspired and already working with diagonal staples at the time, Sellam worked hard at developing the staple system, before finally figuring it out. In his words [“It took me a long time to find the right system.”](https://leclaireur.com/en-int/blogs/news/isaac-sellam-experience-l-amour-brut) This is a perfect example of another part of what makes Sellam’s garments so special, he goes out of his way to experiment and explore the materials he works with. Rather than being bound by his materials, he bends fabric and hides to his whims, creating garments and techniques that have been underutilized if they’ve even been utilized at all by other labels. In an industry where technical innovation is often left to athletic brands, Sellam’s approach to his materials is second to none. 

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With all this in mind, its quite easy to see what makes Sellam’s works so sought after. From the technical properties of the leather he uses, to the attention to detail, Sellam’s passion oozes into the garments he creates. In his own words “I only do things with love, only for love, and that's it.” Often lost in the hustle and bustle of today's profit driven fashion culture is the act of creativity, and the absolute devotion to the craft of garment making. In Sellam’s case, it is quite easy to see in the designer's works that this devotion to artisan ship still rings true, and that at its core, his collections are an utter labor of love.  

We at ARCHIVE.pdf were lucky enough to be offered a peek into the world of Isaac Sellam’s creation during Paris Fashion Week. View the gallery of images below, a special thanks to Isaac Sellam and his team for letting us experience their space.

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Isabelle Davis

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Discussing his life, his journey, and his thoughts on fashion.

Enter the Style Zeitgeist: An Interview with Eugene Rabkin

An exclusive interview with one of Japan's most obscure designers.

From The Runway To The Roadway: Interview with Shinichiro Arakawa

Undercover has been making waves for over a quarter of a century, achieving what many designers and brands could only dream of.

Eras of Undercover: Deciphering the Past, Present, and Future of Jun Takahashi's Cult Brand

We at ARCHIVE.pdf were lucky enough to be offered a peek into the world of Isaac Sellam’s creation during Paris Fashion Week. 

Isaac Sellam: S/S24 Showroom and Brand Overview

An exclusive interview with Ken Rao of Professor. E. 

Question and Answer: Professor. E, Ken Rao, and His Team on Their Creations

Jordan’s unconventional works flow and stand apart from his contemporaries.

Sailing, Nature, and Aging: A Conversation with Jordan Arthur Smith

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Helmut Lang spearheaded a silent revolution in fashion. Those who wore and continue to wear his garments are accomplices, and his influence has persisted long after his departure from the industry, felt just as intensely in the mass market as in the avant-garde. Known for a meticulous attention to detail, innovative applications of textiles, and an understated elegance that permeates all of his work, Lang created a certain magic that will never be replicated. [Helmut Lang showed his first collection in 1986](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwM0VHLQaE8) and found early success, but his reign over the fashion world would not commence until the mid-1990s. His run from 1990 until his [departure from his eponymous brand in 2005](https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/12852/from-the-archive-a-rare-interview-with-helmut-lang-susannah-frankel) has few equals. It was a time of extraordinary output for Lang, each collection building on the previous, all executed to an awe-inspiring standard that few designers have touched since, let alone sustained. 

When the competition can’t do you one better, their best hope is to imitate. And imitate they did. [From department stores to Donna Karan](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/08/all-eyes-on-helmut-lang/401366/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWithout%20Helmut%20Lang%20there%20would%20be%20no%20C%C3%A9line%2C%20no%20Raf%2C%E2%80%9D%20Bernard%20Wilhelm%2C%20a%20German%20fashion%20designer%2C%20told%20i%2DD.%20%E2%80%9CI%E2%80%99ve%20heard%20from%20people%20working%20at%20different%20fashion%20houses%20that%20there%20is%20always%20a%20Helmut%20Lang%20piece%20hanging%20and%20it%E2%80%99s%20right%20there%20to%20be%20copied.%E2%80%9D), the Lang look was repackaged and  bastardized by every designer with a pulse. While those pairs of paint-splattered denim and “premium basic” t-shirts can be viewed as a cheap copy of what Lang did first, they are also a clear testament to his status at the forefront of fashion for more than a decade.

Much has already been written about Helmut Lang’s subversive ideals and avant-garde innovations, so I will not be adding to that course of thought. I will instead focus on how Lang’s basic garments democratized beautiful design, were the purest distillation of his anti-fashion sentiments, and represented his own approach to daily dressing. The M(inimalist) and S(ubversive) words will be avoided whenever possible, as I cannot think of any 2 descriptions more beaten to death than these in the coverage of Helmut Lang’s work. Many designers start off with simple intentions. Beyond aspirations of being remembered or changing history, a common reason to start making your own clothes is that the things you want to wear simply don’t exist yet. While most designers quickly abandon this ideal, Helmut Lang never forgot how he started.

[As a child, Lang was raised in Vienna and his conservative parents forced him to wear his father’s suits to school](https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2000-09-18/flipbook/114/). Unsurprisingly, that didn’t win him much favor amongst his peers. So Lang taught himself how to sew, starting to design clothes that were far more agreeable than those high-strung, terribly oversized 2-piece suits. In late 1960s Vienna, casual American clothes were highly desirable, but difficult to obtain. As it tends to do, the ever-mutating myth of America captured the imagination of kids across the country. Once predicated on cowboys and James Dean, it had recently morphed to hippies, beatniks, and rock’n’roll, with denim being a throughline across subcultures. From an early age, Helmut Lang’s fixation was set. His first loves were T-shirts and jeans, and he never let go.

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20 years after he started, Lang still cited being deprived of expressing himself as a key motivator for his design practice. However, once he got his freedom, his mode of expression ended up being the complete opposite of what most people would define as a liberating wardrobe. A cotton T-shirt, jeans, and black derbies, day in and day out. And what were his brand’s marquee basics? Cotton T-shirts and jeans. Lang had extra motivation to master these items because he was wearing them almost every day. His childhood experiences surface in the character of his clothes, insecurities transmuted into near-perfection. These basic garments reflect a distinct sense of sympathy for the wearer, a bond further deepened by a shared investment in the quality of his designs. He knew all too well how it feels to be uninspired by the options available to you, and he offered people simple, effective solutions to that problem.

Later in his career, [the overwhelming commercial and cultural success of Helmut Lang Jeans](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/26/style/decline-and-fall-of-helmut-lang.html#:~:text=Another%20reason%20for,on%20the%20jeans.%22), Lang’s sub-label that sold you-can-guess-what, vindicated the exhaustive work he had done to perfect the quintessential basic pant. Perhaps mass-producing flattering, sophisticated denim for men and women was his way of making sure nobody had to go through the embarrassment he endured decades ago. Even in his lower Manhattan penthouses, Lang always kept some of that young boy from Vienna around, making him a designer who was uniquely attuned to the needs of real people.

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There’s a great deal of discussion around the idea that Helmut Lang was anti-fashion. And it’s accurate, to a point. He was anti-consumption, anti-publicity, anti-many of the trappings of being a modern fashion designer. Yet he was certainly not anti-expression. He believed in a definition of fashion that could offer consumers value without getting them trapped in the perpetually-unsatisfying “one more grail” mentality. Among many of his fascinating ironies, he was a fashion designer who made clothes specifically designed to stop his customers from buying more. 

While promoting long-lasting clothing is a current trend, with many companies adopting pseudo-greenwashed “buy better, wear longer” campaigns, Lang was one of the first to approach the concept with an earnest philosophy. 

The fact that his anti-consumption views were never outwardly stated proved he cared far more about the end result for his customers than the messaging of his decisions. To use a tired figure of speech, Helmut Lang was able to maintain a quiet public presence because his clothes did all of the talking for him. Lang’s less-but-better ideal was realized through two key characteristics of his garments: they were made to be dressed up or down, and they were made with quality materials and construction. While much of this versatility is hard to quantify, it partly stems from Lang’s military-inspired approach to sartorial dressing. As he combined these two influences, he also kept simplicity at the forefront, which allowed his formal pieces to be casually worn and his basic items to be seamlessly integrated into dressier looks.

Helmut Lang’s clothes last for ages because he always designed with a utilitarian slant, never choosing to forgo function for the sake of fashion. Lang’s frequent military inspiration manifests itself in the form of durable fabric, cuts designed for movement, and beautifully discreet anatomical stitching that would make Poell blush. And in terms of versatility, his clothes are fitting the niche of 4 different garments at once. Most designs would get stretched thin by trying to do so much, but Lang’s work finds refuge in its restraint. It’s the clothing equivalent of a poker face, never revealing an intended setting. The power to determine where and how to wear it is in the wearer’s hands. One more thing: his work will never go out of style, so the only obsolescence you have to worry about is the clothes falling apart from continuous wear. 

“In a sense, Helmut Lang has solved the problem of what to wear too well for his own good: when you’ve got a couple of his uniforms, you don’t need to buy any more clothes.” - The New Yorker, 2000

Helmut Lang pieces from 1986-2005, via printings.jp 

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From the elegant cuts to the accessible nature of much of his work, Lang was able to transform the typically mundane concept of daily dressing into a concise, poignant form of fashion. It’s exceedingly rare to find a designer who has unwavering appeal on both tips of the proverbial fashion iceberg, but Helmut Lang was able to pull it off because he was always independent from the trappings of the fashion industry. His unspoiled, entirely personal calculus of value is one of his greatest strengths.

Helmut Lang Spring 1998 Menswear Collection

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Funnily enough, those who were introduced to fashion through Helmut Lang had the rest of fashion ruined for them, because nothing else was ever as good. Maybe that was his goal. He made many individuals, including myself, re-examine their relationships to fashion and reframe them in a fulfilling lens. My personal experience went as follows: His clothes lull you into a sense of absolute contentment, then you zoom out and say “Why don’t I feel this way when I wear anything else?” That kicks off a process of questioning that eventually takes you to the root of what fashion should be: unfussy, enjoyable, and timeless. Once you see that roadmap, you can go out and apply it to other aspects of life. This may sound hyperbolic, but for me, that message spread to my thoughts around design, then to my approach to writing, then to how I structure my day-to-day commitments. Helmut Lang cared about his customers far beyond the point of sale, and like everything else he did, he showed it instead of saying it.

Helmut Lang pieces from 1986-2005, via printings.jp

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All designers should certainly put their own stamp on their work, but in my opinion, a degree of compromise separates the good from the great. Making expressive and unique clothing that others can still adapt to their lives is an exceedingly difficult task. So I guess it’s hard to fault designers who choose to commandeer their relationship with consumers when the alternative is making white-bread mall clothes that contribute little more than emissions to the world.

However, designer-dominant fashion is far from an ideal scenario. In these cases, there is little negotiation between the wearer and creator, and the creator feels no need to make concessions to the wearer: it is entirely a one-way dialogue. Unfortunately, the consumer usually doesn’t mind being spoken for, which neglects much of the potential gratification one can get from personal style. Many designers unintentionally lead their customers astray with fashion that clearly outlines a narrative, because consumers get used to that practice and their capacity to take an individual approach to fashion atrophies. 

While fashion can be a fulfilling pursuit in the proper context, we must carefully negotiate our relationship to clothing to prevent it from becoming superficial or destructive. There are two extremes to be avoided. One: the trap of trying to come off as more cultured and avant-garde than everybody else, and spending thousands of dollars on nonfunctional clothes that are so strange they alienate you from anyone except those who are as far down the rabbit hole as you are. Beyond a certain point, it becomes a sunk cost, and because you and all of your friends see fashion as a core tenet of your personality, you continue compulsively purchasing for the sake of continuity. Might be desirable to some, but I’ll pass. Two: “caring” about clothes by buying bland fast fashion and doing the bare minimum to make yourself presentable. Neither of these scenarios can be classified as expression. One is consumption with the lofty facade of self-discovery, and the other is plain old consumption.

 There’s a limit to what you can get out of curating. At a certain point, you have to start creating something to move forward. Let good taste be a hobby, but never let it be an obsession, because the enjoyment that comes from collecting things eventually turns into a thoughtless distraction. 

When you combine existing elements, they still fundamentally belong to whoever made them in the first place. Form something unique, and it can never be taken away from you.

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Helmut Lang made clothes that augment your personality. He worked in the background to improve the lives of the people who wore his work, always sure to conceal his own voice so the wearer can imbue the garments with personal meaning.

His clothes are a launching pad for whatever you are. They give you a shot of confidence, and they can slip into the background or foreground depending on the situation. They are constantly engaged in an open discussion with the wearer and the outside world, they adapt to your needs, they are a meticulously engineered tool. And they are purposefully designed to do just enough, but never too much. 

“You cannot put a personality together with clothes. It only reaches up to the neck. And then it ends.” - Helmut Lang, 1995

Sean Holley

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A common reason to start making your own clothes is that the things you want to wear simply don’t exist yet.

Redefining Fashion: Decoding Helmut Lang's Universal Appeal

Kié Lee pieces together hazy memories of a shattered past to craft the future.

Paving Your Own Path: An Interview with Kié Einzelgänger

ARCHIVE.pdf spoke with Antwerp-based designer Kié Einzelgänger about her second collaboration with Wildside Yohji Yamamoto.

Wildside Volume 2: An Exclusive Conversation with Kié Einzelgänger

Suzume Uchida delves deeper into the grotesque beauty of fear, vulnerability, and the spirits that haunt her art.

Monsters & Demons: An Interview with Suzume Uchida, Part 2

Suzume Uchida unveils the dark allure of monsters, demons, and the raw emotions behind her art.

Monsters & Demons: An Interview with Suzume Uchida, Part 1

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Graphic prints on clothing. A classic and simple staple feature that adds that extra something to an outfit. A bold visual with a hidden meaning. A canon of references that the designer may or may not have pulled from. An enigma, or at times blatantly obvious. Archive fashion and the brands that ARCHIVE.pdf follows have seen an extensive use of graphic prints across the years. We’ve covered a large selection of these graphics within our library of scans and reckoned that it was equally right to give some hero brands and their use of said graphics a closer look.

Introducing the new ‘Graphic Prints in Archive Fashion’ series, here we will be profiling our favorite archive fashion brands and the graphic print designs we’ve been spotting time and time again, as well as those one-offs tucked away inside the archive. The first brand we will be profiling is Jun Takahashi’s UNDERCOVER.

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Jun Takahashi founded UNDERCOVER in 1993. From conception, pulling references and getting inspiration from culture and close environments has been an integral part of the brand’s DNA, lending to why its use of visual imagery and graphic prints is so striking and memorable. Takahashi’s own personal interests were used as the initial canvas for most UNDERCOVER collections: the brand is peppered with references to punk, the designer’s homeland, street culture, American-influenced streetwear styles and much more.

Takahashi was very outspoken in his own views, oftentimes using his collections and their use of cultural references as a form of social commentary on current affairs. This is why you’d more often than not spot the use of a dark, moody palette than one brimming with color and life, or why collections could feel slightly surreal and very on the nose. Comme des Garçons' Rei Kawakubo called Jun “the only one with courage” for this reason. Everything was on show, motivated by what was wrong and could be changed versus the beautiful, great and easy to sell to the public.

At the start, there were T-shirt designs. At the end, there will be T-shirt designs.

Welcoming the Weird: Walter van Beirendonck meets Kidill

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Polimoda, AN/ARCHIVE EVENT TWO and the 'Anti-Museum' Horizon

Ann Demulemeester S/S 2025 Backstage