INTRODUCING: LUTZ HUELLE

Posted: 14/11/2023

Lutz Huelle is a name to know.

The Shelter’s secret is out. We’re excited to launch the Parisian brand Lutz Huelle.

With Martin Margiela training, it’s no surprise that Huelle designs for the streets, not the runway, specialising in details that elevate clothes about the everyday. Characterized by a modern, minimalist and experimental aesthetic, with a focus on detail and innovative construction techniques. Huelle plays on the idea of reusing existing clothes to give them a new life through his collections.

The Paris-based designer wants clothes to “pose questions” and above all wants fashion to be real. Lutz also has a small connection to our little country! Not only is the designer a two-time winner of the Andam Fashion Award, but he has also been an International judge for the ID Fashion Awards in Dunedin... and now his pieces are available in New Zealand.

To launch the range at The Shelter, we pulled together some of our favourite thoughts from Lutz, so you can get to know the designer and brand a little better.

It all started at Central Saint Martins. Tell us about knowing you wanted to become a designer:

“It wasn’t easy for my parents to have a son who wanted neither to work at a bank nor become a footballer – when I told them I was going to move to London to become a fashion designer, they were less than thrilled… it wasn’t something you did, and even less in my hometown… but they let me go and supported me throughout my time at college, without ever having a clear idea of what I was going to do afterwards.

Going to Central Saint Martins was such a life-changing experience for me, above all because after being worried and unsure about my abilities all during my early teens it made me believe in myself and gave me a feeling that everything was possible… and this is the most important thing to learn for every single student: It’s all about allowing yourself to believe in your abilities to do anything… because you are. Had anyone told me when I first started at St Martins that working in Fashion mean't never ever stopping and being late no matter how far advanced the work is, I would have maybe listened to my parents and become a lawyer.. but then again maybe I wouldn’t have hehe!”

How would you describe the signature Lutz Huelle aesthetic?

“It’s everyday clothes put through a different light. I’ve always been really interested in what people wear, easily, all the time. It’s not really occasion dressing, but just something that you really want to put on. It’s the basics of everyone’s wardrobes but twisted around slightly. It’s always been something you know: a trench coat, bomber jacket, but slightly twisted around so that it’s become something else.

What I really like is that you can wear these things and you give out all these different signals and signs that you can’t really read anymore. It’s like denim with lace or a bomber jacket with silvery jacquard. It’s things where you have different types or ways of seeing things. I’ve always been really obsessed with people wearing clothes. It’s always been about real life. It’s more important than anything.”

Where do you draw inspiration from?

“When I first started, I kept wondering how our lives were changing. I thought: people are going to go out much more, and they are not going to wear one outfit for the office, one outfit for the evening… I thought all these things were going to be mixed together. People were going to wear clothes that do all these things at once. Clothes are multicultural and multifunctional. So when I first started, I did not want to have any limits on how I would design the collections.

I was also looking at my friends and people around me. They are all dressed in an easy and simple way. A simple T-shirt with an expensive jacquard… I think there was a big difference between how people were dressing and what I was seeing at Fashion shows and I was really interested in how people were actually dressing.

Now that I’ve been doing this for a while, I always look at my own work. I always try to keep the last four seasons on my wall, and I look at what I like, what I think might be better, what is still interesting, what is old now, and what I don’t like anymore. The collection is always inspired by the preceding one.

And then, I’ve always loved music… that has always been a huge inspiration, but I can’t explain how because it’s not visual, it’s something in my head. Music makes me feel a certain way. There are also designers that I love: Pierre Cardin in the 60s of Comme des Garcons, which are still amazing.”

You trained with Margiela – how has that influenced your brand?

“The reason why I wanted to work there was because it was so close to what I liked. It was so much about reality. He was one of the first people at the time who dressed people who I could understand, who I could identify with. I think that in a way, it was a reason why I wanted to work there. I felt I could do that as well. I just became a professional designer in that company because I loved going to factories and doing technical drawings. All those things I didn’t learn at school.

It was such a small company at the time. There was Martin, and there was another person, and then there was me, doing the collections. It was super small, super familiar and friendly. How we do everything here (at Lutz Huelle), prototypes even. It’s been a really good moment; it’s a small team of people who have been here a very long time.”

Tell us about the latest, and our first Lutz Huelle collection at The Shelter

“The collection never really changes much from season to season. It’s much more like an ongoing project. I always look at what I’ve done before, maybe last season’s work or maybe work from collections ago, and I take it from there. I was interested in silhouettes this season. I like the idea of drama because everything has been about sportswear, casual and streetwear for such a long time now that I like thinking not only in terms of wardrobe but also silhouettes. Where do you place volume? Where do you want the body to look different? Where do you want someone’s eyes to go when you put something on? How do you move away from the everyday without losing that aspect?”

Can you tell us how the brand has evolved over the years, especially working with your partner David?

The now Paris-based designer’s studio can be found down a cobbled Marais alley. The first office was a courtyard studio in the 10^th arrondissement, “We just scrambled enough money together to pay the deposit and rent, and I moved all of my magazines and vintage clothes in there in order to be surrounded by work. We had a great long table that took over most of the space, with David on one side and me on the other. This was where we prepared that first show and where I designed the next five collections before we were able to move to a bigger space in Rue de Rivoli (just below David Guetta’s studio, which used to drive me mad with the constant boom boom from upstairs while I was working on a Sunday.)

People always ask how we manage to live and also work together… the truth is that it’s always made the work so much easier. I would not have been able to navigate fashion’s treacherous waters without David by my side, and both triumphs and tribulations are so much easier to live through when you’re not alone. The main reason why I started out on my own was because I simply wanted to surround myself with people I loved – if you spend your days working you might as well do it with someone you love right?”

Evolution is gradual; revolution is radical. Is fashion still capable of revolution?

Fashion is this incredible beast that changes every single minute, every single day. It constantly evolves. Anybody who says that everything has been said or done in fashion is wrong in my mind because every day, there’s something new and fresh – that’s what fashion feeds on. Revolution happens in fashion when there is a social revolution. So as that happens, fashion will follow. As long as people get dresses, there will be fashion and how it relates to the idea of clothes, identity, and sexuality.

How to launch a fashion house without a penny to your name:

1) Assemble all the courage you have and even the courage you never knew you had…

2) Leave your flat and move in with your boyfriend, then use the Monday to rent a room behind Gare du Nord which doubles as both an office and to stock your stuff (mainly books, magazines and vintage clothes).

3) Spend a year working on a first collection, deciding that you will just follow your instincts and do what you like: Street and Sportswear as fashion, elevated by taking it out of context, re-inventing, re-making, and re-assembling.

4) Start working as a freelance designer in Italy, with the money to finance a first show at a friend’s studio space and hope that people will turn up.

5) When they do, have a moment of sheer panic, then scramble together a linesheet with prices, clean up the studio as best you can and start answering the phone.

6) Sell to 14 stores, amongst them some of the most famous in the world – Andreas Murkudis, Le Claireur, Marisa Lusia International, Penelope Brescia, Janatorino, 10Corsocomo, Lift Ecru, Aya, Kashiyama Daikanyama without knowing how to produce a single piece …

7) Pack the collection into a suitcase, take the night train to Italy and crisscross the country with your suitcase and a terrible German accent in search of a factory that believes in what you are doing… and this being Italy you find one!... Bingo! A fashion house named LUTZ is born! .. oh and

8) Win the Andam Fashion Award and the sky is the limit. And here’s a little advice: If you believe in what you are doing then never give up!