Saving Helmut Lang’s archives from a fire

What drew you to the brand Helmut Lang and how did you begin working there?  

I met Helmut Lang back in 2003 when I interned for his brand’s HQ in New York while attending Parsons School of Design. At the time, they did not accept interns. I had an in after having worked at Dior Homme in Paris under Hedi Slimane during the hyper-hype of his first two collections, and Hedi’s PR director Sabisha Friedberg, who was very much a mentor for me, recommended me to Helmut’s assistant. Long story short, I worked in the press department during the summer of 2003. I would see Helmut around and we’d be cordial. Word got around that I had a certain humour and charm in addition to being hard-working, and at the end of my internship, he asked to meet with me. I remember walking into the conference room at 142 Greene Street and sitting opposite Helmut and Melanie Ward – casually chatting about everything from what I wanted to do in life to good times at The Cock. We established a good rapport with humour as the foundation. I graduated a year after and needed a job. Having boosted my work experience at Visionaire, Yohji Yamamoto, Guggenheim Museum, and Alexander McQueen. Helmut created a position for me in the press department, which was a blessing and a curse as colleagues felt I slipped on a banana peel or got the job unfairly. That said,my first suit when I was 17 was a Helmut Lang suit. I bought my first designer jacket when I was 16; a green nylon Helmut Lang jacket. My senior thesis was about matters of integrity vs commerce in the art/fashion dialogue, which he pioneered at the time. I had set the path prior and the stars were somehow aligned. After 10 years of working with Helmut, I gave up my job and moved from New York to Los Angeles for love, trying to emulate a traditional relationship. However, that went to shit only a few months later when I got royally dumped. I was left stranded in a city that I did not know. Thankfully my brother moved there at the same time as I did, so I lived with him and his wife until I got my studio across the street from Chateau Marmont. I decided to make this new experience and redefine the reasons why I moved to LA to begin with. I started to get to work with an office made of plastic storage bins and a mattress on the floor. It wasn’t easy by any means. My first projects were an exhibition I produced and curated of Silvia Prada’s art, PR gigs for galleries and museums and the creation and curation of Henzel Studio Collaborations, a program of limited edition art rugs designed with contemporary artists.I also run and own the CULTUREEDIT online store and space in Hollywood. We produce exhibitions across disciplines and carry designers that include Walter Van Beirendonck, Louis Gabriel Nouchi, Henrik Vibskov, Loverboy by Charles Jeffrey and many more.

What made it so important for Helmut Lang to archive his collections? 

In order for Helmut to be able to encapsulate his fashion experience and properly move on to his future activities, the archive needed to be organised, functional and structured, allowing one chapter to be closed responsibly before moving on to the next. The initial phase of the archiving process also served as a well-deserved break for Helmut after decades of being at the top of his game.

What was the archiving process like?

The database of the archive took about 2-3 years to digitise. It was quite a meticulous project.  Each piece was either photographed or scanned, and put into context with look images, tags, categories, etc.

“In order for Helmut to be able to encapsulate his fashion experience and properly move on to his future activities, the archive needed to be organised, functional and structured, allowing one chapter to be closed responsibly before moving on to the next. ” – Joakim Andreasson

Creating clothes and archiving them is an intense process, what went through your mind when you heard about the fire?

I actually witnessed the fire in person. I had a friend stay over at my apartment on Barrow Street in the West Village one night and around 4 am, I got a call from the alarm company at our office that there was a fire and I immediately got up and headed to Greene Street in SOHO. Once there, the fire was in full effect, heavy smoke out the windows, visible flames and countless firefighters and trucks. The Red Cross was there too, and I got wrapped in a Red Cross blanket and stayed put until I realised that there was nothing that could be done and no way of assessing the damage. Thankfully, the residents made it out OK, and no one got hurt. In terms of what went through my mind as I watched the disaster, I was pretty naive in my optimism when it came to recovering the damage.

“The fact that Helmut was known for using non-traditional materials in his fashion including rubber, plastics and other industrial materials did not help with the toxic air after the fire. Even if items looked salvageable they maintained a hue of smoke damage and smell that was impossible to get rid of.” – Joakim Andreasson

After the fire, what was it like walking into the space and what was the process of salvaging what remained?  

The next day, I headed over to view the site and the damage. It was quite shocking. The building was completely blocked off. Clothing and racks were thrown around on the floor resembling a large-scale pick-a-stick game. As firefighters ploughed through the space to stop the fire, clothes were spread all over the floor, flown out the window or engulfed by the flames. Thousands of garments were soaked in water and covered in ashes, creating a mud-like layer on all the clothing.I can still smell the intense smoke which lingered in my nose for months after. It was overwhelming to think about the recovery process. The fact that Helmut was known for using non-traditional materials in his fashion including rubber, plastics and other industrial materials did not help with the toxic air after the fire. Even if items looked salvageable they maintained a hue of smoke damage and smell that was impossible to get rid of. For months after, we assessed what could be saved, explored options to repair and tried to make sense of it all. It was me and Helmut’s creative assistant who took care of everything. It began affecting my health and I would get a doctor’s note and avoid coming to work. We spent about 3 years dealing with the aftermath of the fire. From renovations, cleaning services, and storage units, to moving artefacts from one place to the next. In terms of damaged goods, Helmut found good use for these items, and famously rented a shredding truck and had thousands of pieces destroyed and turned into “fashion confetti”. This was used as raw material for a massive series of sculptures that have since been exhibited at galleries and institutions in Europe and The United States. Prior to the fire, I worked with museum collections around the world to ensure that Lang’s work was properly represented from all eras of his fashion oeuvre. All in all we donated hundreds of complete looks and hundreds of single pieces. I am now proud to say that what I achieved ensures that Helmut’s work is protected and can be shared with generations to come via the efforts of museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Kyoto Costume Institute, Musee de la Mode et du Textile, Victoria & Albert Museum, Groeninger Museum, MOMU and many more.  If a museum has a good loaning budget, a bad ass show could be easily produced. The initial idea was to have all data relating to the location of looks centralised by an institution and make all the pieces available for online viewing, but that has yet to become a reality.

How were the decisions to donate what was left of collections to museums or sell pieces on eBay made?

The donations to museums had already been secured by the time the fire broke out. That said, it was an interesting experience. I worked closely with the world’s most renowned curators to ensure proper representation in the museum world, including Pamela Golbin, Andrew Bolton, Kaat Debo, Sonnet Stanfill, Valerie Steele, Rie Nii and many more. In total, we arranged solid donations to 20 institutions worldwide. I also worked on representation with untraditional collections, such as MUDAM in Luxemburg and The National Gallery in Norway. It was really interesting to go through the process of each donation both with respect to the curators but also the bureaucracy of each institution. Each institution had advantages and limitations to consider.  Some curators were clearly “shopping” according to their own taste rather than identifying key attributes of Lang’s work. Some examined the materials and only chose which were low maintenance. Others tried to coordinate the representation into a cohesive grouping that could be shown together. The optimal outcome was when there was a constructive dialogue and exchange of information with the sole interest of representing Lang’s body of work.

“Dealing with a disaster like this, you realise that material things are simply matter and that they can disappear or be destroyed abruptly and violently regardless of how many precautions you take.” – Joakim Andreasson

In terms of what was decided to let go of via eBay, after having gone through what was salvageable from the fire and after donating to museums, for the following 3 years my weekends were dedicated to photographing and listing these items online. There was no nostalgia or difficulty in letting go. It was simply about getting the job done. I took solace in the fact that I had done my best in evaluating the options. Looking back,  I do know that my work contributed to archives around the world, and I feel that my work placing Lang’s fashion in museums worldwide offloads any guilt of unloading for capital gain. Hopefully, this project helps to bridge the gap.

Having worked so intimately with the pieces before and after the fire, how did this incident shift your relationship with Lang and with the pieces?

Dealing with a disaster like this, you realise that material things are simply matter and that they can disappear or be destroyed abruptly and violently regardless of how many precautions you take. That experience made it easier to consider the bigger picture, and as much as the designs are amazing, important objects, it is at the end of the day just more “stuff” and in many ways a burden. In regards to my relationship with Lang, looking back I think it brought us closer as we went through the experience together.

In what ways do you think fashion archives are important?

Aside from the obvious aspects, such as enduring artistic legacy, documenting provenance as well as historical and cultural value, it serves as a reference to people’s individual memories, sentiments and experiences.

“In the early 2000s fashion houses’ focus was to create “it bags”, accessories and unreasonable volume.  That went against Helmut’s design ethos.” – Joakim Andreasson

What were the feelings around your departure from the brand in 2005 and how has it felt watching the evolution of the brand through the years?

Looking back, I think what made Helmut Lang unique in the luxury world is that his brand was extremely tied to him as the author. It was always unimaginable to consider the brand without the person at a time when the fashion media as opposed to Instagram defined the industry’s pecking order.  In the early 2000s fashion houses’ focus was to create “it bags”, accessories and unreasonable volume.  That went against Helmut’s design ethos. I think the way the brand was directed beyond his control disregarded the fact that his success was embedded in consistent staple pieces that established a reliable fashion uniform infused with new ideas and creative executions free from trends and conceptual enough to avoid being dumbed down to anything obvious. This is why his work managed to uphold the gravitas and stature often associated with the art world. The brand post-2005 2005 tried to replicate this by implementing transparent marketing strategies explaining or simplifying Helmut’s work, stripping away any sense of aura or cues that create desire. Helmut was never one to be pinned down, and he maintained the unexpected while staying true to himself even if this meant alienating the masses.

“The desirability of original Lang designs after he left fashion created a hyped generation of collectors such as David Casavant, Michael Kardamakis, Gill Linton, Justin Westover and more. All branding themselves as owning the largest archives for vintage Helmut Lang clothing.” – Joakim Andreasson

Why was putting together a book, more than ten years later important for you?

I saved all the pictures that I had created over the course of dispersing the archive via eBay and after parting ways with Helmut in 2022, I felt it was time to do something with this material. To take ownership of this overwhelming experience and of the documenting process. The body of work encompasses more than 10,000 photographs that in their entirety show Lang’s consistent language throughout his designs. It is not meant to serve as a catalogue raisonné by any means. It serves more as a visual encapsulation of significant garments whose destiny got shifted through a catastrophic event. They are captured with a low-fi straightforward and consistent aesthetic that at the time was fit for eBay. With some time passing, I enjoy the abstraction and seriality of the images, capturing slight variations of that DNA that over 20 years of first-hand examination is now very familiar to me. Time has allowed for a different perspective. The desirability of original Lang designs after he left fashion created a hyped generation of collectors such as David Casavant, Michael Kardamakis, Gill Linton, Justin Westover and more. All branding themselves as owning the largest archives for vintage Helmut Lang clothing.  Funnily enough, I was contributing to their collections straight from the source without them knowing the extent of it. In terms of significance, I think it is more the documentation of a circumstance than the representation of one man’s work. But that doesn’t mean it cannot be considered a point of reference in studying Lang’s work and history. I like the idea of demystifying significant events that clearly have had an impact. It is also significant to note that there has not been a single book published on Lang’s work in fashion to date.

“Cool doesn’t pay the bills. You need to connect with people on a deeper level to maintain longevity. ” – Joakim Andreasson

What was the most challenging part of the process? 

It wasn’t necessarily challenging. Matthew Holroyd who edited the book and also runs Baron was the perfect partner through the process. We both share a slightly anarchistic approach that allows for independent voices to be heard. I hope this book encourages members in fashion and art, industries that are heavily controlled and regimented, to present a more honest view towards its audience.

What is the biggest lesson you have gained from your fashion career so far? 

That “cool” doesn’t pay the bills. You need to connect with people on a deeper level to maintain longevity.

From your work on this book and your career at large, do you have any advice for younger fashion creatives?

I certainly did not choose a traditional route and have throughout my career created my projects and platforms that push boundaries and advance matters hoping they resonate with the public. That said, be humble, avoid self-promotion whenever it’s not needed, don’t be a purist or pretentious, create a diversified business model and to quote Britney Spears: You better work Bitch!