Today, for day two of The Run-Through’s NYFW “Shark Week,” I spoke with Peter Do about his new creative director gig at Helmut Lang.
Do has long name-checked the Austrian designer as an influence, and you can see it across his five years of Peter Do collections—so his debut show for the Fast Retailing–owned brand, set for early this afternoon, is a momentous occasion. But in our conversation Do betrayed not a note of anxiety. Instead, he talked about his teenage discovery of Lang’s work (on Tumblr, where else?), his treasured pair of paint-splattered Helmut Lang Jeans, and Lang’s lasting impact on the fashion industry. Pointing out that it’s thanks to Lang’s 1998 schedule change that the American collections now come first on the international show cycle, he laughed, “Helmut is the reason why, if you work in the industry in New York, you never have a Labor Day off.”
Do himself had signed off on his show looks pre-Labor Day, which might explain his calm demeanor. He was especially candid about his adolescence as a Vietnamese immigrant in the Philadelphia suburbs. “You learn really quickly that clothes are sort of like your protective armor. My Hollister and my Abercrombie Fitch outfits were sort of like a tool to not get bullied and try to blend in.” But then his mom bought him a $20 sewing machine from Kmart, and before long he was putting on fashion shows.
If you can believe it, Do was still in high school when Helmut Lang walked away from the business in 2005, having dressed a generation of ’90s influencers. But Do has a clear take on Lang’s perennial appeal. “For me, I always look up to people who are consistent, who know what they want, persevere, really believe in what they’re doing and go for it.” Check back later today to see how he lives up to those lofty ideals on the Helmut Lang runway.
