Trend Cycle Warriors
City uniforms, Peter Do for Helmut Lang, and this stupid red rose top
Have you seen this With Jean top? I can’t remember exactly how I came across it for the first time. All I know for sure is that I liked it, I thought it was cute. And then I kept seeing it everywhere — on my feed, on big IG models and influencers, A-list celebrities, and in NYC streets, until one summer afternoon I found myself in a block-long line to the With Jean popup in Soho. Inside the store, I watched a flood of young skinny girls pick up the very red top, try it on in front of the slightly rude in the most Australian way staff, and walk out of the store, beaming with the same excitement that I imagine college girls feel when they pick up their first sorority t-shirts.
I, on the other hand, walked out empty handed. The garments were cheaply made and overpriced, the staff was unpleasant, but most importantly, I couldn’t bare the thought of going out for dinner somewhere in the East Village and seeing another blonde white girl with a slick back bun wearing the same top. To this day, whenever I see it in the wild, I can’t help but mentally acknowledge another victim of the IG feed.
For me, it wasn’t just about the top though. What I’ve been thinking about for months after leaving With Jean empty-handed is whether we are bound to lose interest in everything we think is cool as we watch it spread through the masses.
Instinctively, I want to say yes. Just in the last couple of years, I’ve seen this happen with Adidas Samba sneakers and Realisation Par dresses, but also music, books, cars, and even summer vacations in Italy. When the masses start buying into something at a rapid speed, a good chunk of people who feel a strong urge to show the world they are different emerges, until the cycle repeats.
Hitting the jackpot and making a hit product or a cult brand in the consumer culture that’s so flat and so fast is both a blessing and a curse — how the hell is anyone supposed to survive these extreme highs and low?
Peter Do, the newly appointed creative director of Helmut Lang, posted these BTS pictures from the SS24 System of Dressing campaign shoot. What you are looking at is a group of models dressed in identical pieces, designed to be the New York uniform — functional and reliable everyday wear that blurs the lines between menswear and womenswear, tailored and casual, formal and informal.
“In his debut Spring/Summer 2024 Collection, Peter Do introduced a new system of dressing. The core silhouettes will evolve season after season, never sacrificing fit. They are the foundation for those constantly in motion. There’s freedom and fluidity in the clothes, and fashion’s divisions—menswear vs. womenswear, formal vs. informal, tailored vs. casual—cease to exist. There’s only adaptability, utility, protection. There’s no “right” or “wrong” way to wear something. Our ever-changing lives call for clothes that can evolve with us. They call for a system of dressing.”
— via HELMUTLANG.COM
Normally, pictures of identically dressed people spotted in the wild are meant to be a joke — look at these idiots who’s got no identity of their own! Peter’s pictures of identity dressed models look magnetic. They don’t look tasteless or boring, they look like something out of The Matrix — hot, powerful, and cool. I want to look at them, and the more neat garment details I uncover, the more I want to keep looking at them. But most importantly, I want to know who the hell they are and where they are going, towering over everyone as they make their way down a city street.
To me, Peter’s System of Dressing exists in two contexts. First is the homogeneous minimalism (brought to you by Everlane, Uniqlo, and even The Row) that spiraled out of the original Helmut Lang ethos to make functional, minimal everyday clothing. The other one is the overwhelmingly fast trend cycles that are just as prevalent in capital-F Fashion as they are in mass retail. The System of Dressing seems like an interesting promise to the people who feel like everything is been overdone, both the classic and the novelties, and keep agonizing themselves and others in search of something fresh and unique.
I really like this quote from Alec Leach in his piece about Peter’s first collection for Helmut Lang:
“We don’t need non-stop newness from designers, because their clothes are meant to be worn. And when it comes to the critics, the reviews and the discourse online, we need to primarily evaluate fashion not on its concept, but on its longevity. And by that I don’t just mean a product’s physical durability, but its emotional and cultural staying power. It’s not enough for clothes to simply last a long time — we need them to be loved for a long time, to be seen as important for a long time.”
The campaign that came shortly after the System of Dressing photoshoot is the People of Helmut Lang spread that features a collective of interesting people who represent the community of Helmut Lang. Here, Peter gives us another powerful quote: “The person gives meaning and value to the clothes and not the other way around.”
This message to me is maybe more important and interesting than Peter’s clothes. When everything is marketed to you as part of a dream lifestyle or an extension of who you are, it’s nice to see someone who dedicates their life to making clothes, be honest and clear about the intended function of clothing in their customer’s universe.
Don’t get me wrong, I love clothes. By now, I spent a whole week digging deep into the Helmut Lang archives, fascinated by how simple yet effective and hot a lot of these pieces are. Yet, I don’t want the clothes I am wearing to be the most interesting thing about me. I want to feel cool, successful, and interesting regardless of what I put on that day.
Could this be the key to the idea longevity and the cultural staying power that Alec Leach talked about? Empowering your community to search inwards rather than raising the bar inches above everyone’s reach or pointing to yet another void that’s asking to be filled? It seems promising, but I guess only time will tell. What it surely changed for me now is my view on identical pieces and uniforms.
Maybe I don’t mind being part of a club that takes more effort to understand and join than clicking the “Buy“ button. Maybe the problem with most trends is how they emerge — participating in one means admitting to strangers that your choices are influenced by your social media feed. But what if you spotted someone wearing something that signals that both of you are part of something bigger than consumerism? I imagine that’s what it was like being a young adult in the peak era of real subcultures rather than a bunch of short-lived -cores.
IN THE MARGINS:
There are a couple more things I found in regards to uniforms, Helmut Lang, and Peter Do that didn’t fit into the main story but are fascinating nonetheless:
Thom Browne’s The Officepeople campaign. Pure theater — just goosebumps all over my skin! There is something so powerful in putting a diverse group of people in identical skirt suits.
Maison Margiela’s lab coats. I didn’t know this, but to this day everyone at Margiela, from the head designers to the interns, wears a lab coat — a rule that was put in place by Martin Margiela himself as a means of establishing a sense of collective identity, unity and mystery. Martin Margiela’s identity is famously a mystery, so Margiela’s staff photos leave an empty seat in his spot. Obsessed!
Bliss Foster’s video about Peter Do’s debut show for Helmut Lang. A great overview of Helmut Lang’s backstory and evolution that helps you understand why Helmut Lang is so legendary and influential in the context of contemporary fashion. I’d love to dig deeper though — so if you have any interesting sources oh Helmut Lang, please send them my way!
I really enjoy your takes on fashion and trends!
Super impressed by the Peter Do campaign and even more by his ethos.