Helmut Lang’s iconic campaigns

[H]elmut Lang’s campaigns were much like his collections – stark, minimalist, artistic and unique. Lang frequently collaborated with art and photography’s finest, lifting the lo-fi aesthetic of Juergen Teller, the pioneering work of Robert Mapplethorpe and the incisive artwork of Jenny Holzer. Here, we choose four of our favourites.

Helmut Lang x Juergen Teller, SS04

For Helmut Lang’s SS04 campaign he partnered with fellow master of minimalism, Juergen Teller. The nipple-baring tank top has since been written into fashion history for its incredible composition of subversion, sex and simplicity.

Helmut Lang Parfums x Jenny Holzer, 2000

Helmut Lang Parfums debut fragrance was launched with this stark, unforgettable collaboration with artist Jenny Holzer. The collaboration began with an installation: a room filled with Lang’s fragrance with Holzer’s LED slogans plastered around the room, designed to recreate the lingering scent of a lover. Eventually came a full “anti-advertising” campaign produced with the support of art director Marc Atlan. Between them, the trio conspired to eschew typical fragrance imagery and produce one of the most simple but effective campaigns ever devised.

David Sims x Helmut Lang, 1994

Lang felt that this collaboration was so strong that he took a three year campaign hiatus. The image, “Martin on Blue” by David Sims shows an unconventional model wearing a denim cape. In the context of 1994 fashion advertising, that was dominated by the unforgettable Kate Moss-Steven Meisel-Calvin Klein axis (in the same year, Meisel shot the iconic CK One campaign, which was effectively a long line up of beautiful bodies), this shot is alone in its wonderfully subversive casting.

Helmut Lang x Robert Mapplethorpe, 1997

Clothes were often an afterthought in Helmut Lang campaigns. Somehow, through photography, typography and casting, the designer was able to express his brand’s aesthetic – minimal, elegant, original, disruptive. No campaign captures that better than his 1997 appropriation of Robert Mapplethorpe’s self-portrait taken in 1975. Featuring no clothes at all, the campaign combined the work of two visionary artists with the utmost simplicity.