Who: Helena Lumelsky, known as Lena.
What: Growing up in post-communist Sevastopol, Crimea, Lumelsky didn’t have access to the things most 12 year-olds can pick up at the local drugstore. As a child, she began to create and draft her own fashion magazine by hand—without ever having seen a real one—and she later taught herself how to stitch and knit her own clothes. After graduating with a Masters from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2006, she teamed up with fellow classmate Demna Gvasalia and started the label Stereotypes, which debuted in 2007 at Japan Fashion Week.
Inspired by old Hollywood glamour and black-and-white films, Lumelsky launched her eponymous label in 2009, using her background in menswear to design floor-sweeping skirts and dramatic silhouettes cut with leather and trimmed with black tulle (and thus became known as fashion industry’s Hitchcock-meets-Aronofsky). Based in Antwerp, she believes in using couture methods of production and makes all of her patterns in three dimensions on mannequins with knits made in Italy. Her creations are intended to be comfortable yet feminine and as Lumelsky says, “for the woman here and now, perfect in her imperfections.”
What fall will bring: Horror Vacui (Lumelsky’s A/W 13 collection) in Latin means ‘fear of empty space.’ The color palate and silhouette is seemingly simple with cuts in pale pink, grey, cream and black with classic fabrics such as double cashmere, lamb leather and chiffon, but the interior designs are exceptionally detailed.
Where you will see it: Carried at Ra in Antwerp and Paris; Opening Ceremony in NY and L.A.; and Avenue 32 and Viola in the U.K.
