HLH | Fall ²⁰⁰⁹⁄₁₀

har­ald lunde helge­sen is the name behind new menswear label hlh … har­ald, 24, was born in nor­way and grad­u­ated from the arts insti­tute in bournemouth (eng­land) this spring … his final year col­lec­tion enti­tled “autumn/​winter 2509 bc” earned him nom­i­na­tions for fash­ion inno­va­tion and fash­ion tex­tiles awards at the lon­don grad­u­ate fash­ion week; it was also selected for the 24th inter­na­tional fes­ti­val of fash­ion and pho­tog­ra­phy in hyères (france) where its designer was bestowed the crys­tal­lized swarovski ele­ments award for cre­ativ­ity by a jury lead by kris van ass­che and includ­ing per­son­al­i­ties such as jef­fer­son hack from another mag­a­zine, artist nan goldin and fan­tas­tic man’s gert jonkers …

“fash­ion has the scent of the mod­ern wher­ever it stirs in the thicket of what has been … it is the tiger’s leap into the past”

the quote by wal­ter ben­jamin from his the­sis on the phi­los­o­phy of fash­ion, serves as a good intro­duc­tion to the col­lec­tion … with “autumn/​winter 2509 bc” the tiger leaps all the way back to the very begin­ning of urban civ­i­liza­tion – to sume­ria in mod­ern day iraq … through exca­va­tions of the rem­nants from this 4500-​​year-​​old cul­ture, bridges are built across mas­sive spans of time … links are also tied across dif­fer­ent cul­tures when west­ern archae­ol­o­gists work next to locals at the exca­va­tion site … the near east has always been the great junc­tion of the world … peo­ple and cul­tures meet, crash and inter­act … tra­di­tions and ideas are passed on and absorbed in new con­texts … all this is made crys­tal clear when exam­in­ing the dress of the locals from the per­spec­tive of ancient time and the global cul­ture of today …

the col­lec­tion plays on sumer­ian sheep’s fleece ‘kau­nakes’, east­ern sal­war trousers and western/​global fash­ion sta­ples like the levi’s 501 jean and denim jacket … the colours all have an ori­gin in brown; like the archae­ol­o­gist sifts through lay­ers of earth and sand, brown mark­ers have been sep­a­rated through chro­matog­ra­phy to find the beau­ti­ful trea­sure of bright colour spec­trums hid­den underneath …

and because those clothes really deserve some closer atten­tion, a few detail shots taken dur­ing the hlh instal­la­tion @ the kokon to zai store in paris last june …