Top image: Hood By Air SS16

Hood By Air founder and designer Shayne Oliver is set to collaborate with Helmut Lang on a special project consisting of women’s and men’s clothes and accessories to be unveiled in September.

Hood By Air is the iconic New York streetwear brand that has, since founding in 2010, spearheaded fashion’s move towards gender-neutral clothing and made waves with its provocative imagery – encouraging conversations about race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality within the fashion industry. The brand skipped out of its planned FW17 presentation in Paris earlier this month.

The alignment seems set to reposition Helmut Lang, part of a new focus under the direction of Isabella Burley, who was recently appointed Helmut Lang’s first editor-in-residence.

Austrian designer Lang departed his own label at the peak of his popularity in 2004, having pioneered a singular code of cool in the 90s through his minimal, culturally-charged designs and “family” – the beautiful pack of age-varying models he repeatedly used in his shows. Lang’s output channeled his affinity with the art world – aside from dressing the up-and-coming creatives of New York’s young art scene, he used legendary and boundary-pushing photographer Robert Mapplethorpe‘s images in his print campaigns, and collaborated with the likes of Louise Bourgeois and Jenny Holzer.

After Lang’s sudden departure, Nicole and Michael Colovos served as creative directors until 2014, and there has been one collection – for Resort 2017 – since.