Have you ever questioned yourself about clothes in the world circuit, or textile metamorphosis in our everyday life? I always wonder about these, and then, looking over designer clothes, I’m swinging between delight and disgust.

As I’ve already talked in a former post about Tohoku – destruction and rebirth of the object through Art, now I have the opportunity to point out the reverse . Because for Helmut Lang, the famous Austrian-born designer,  25 years of collections and fashion pieces can be destroyed just-like-that, and turned into something new – sculptures.

A leading figure of 90’s minimalism, Helmut Lang has left a lasting mark on the industry. Following his brand’s acquisition by the Prada Group six years ago, Lang relocated to a Long Island studio to focus on his artistic career. After his official retiring from fashion in 2005, Helmut Lang isn’t a retired at all. Thus, he comes with a solo art exhibition at East Hampton’s Fireplace Project, and be sure he makes it hard.

Having already donated thousands of items from his vast archive to the crème de la crème of fashion and design museums worldwide, the designer-turned-artist has shredded his remaining 6,000 garments to use as raw material for making a series of sculptures. About a dozen stalactitelike pieces are to go on display from July 22 at The Fireplace Project, a gallery in East Hampton, N.Y., in a solo exhibition titled “Make it Hard.” According to writer and creative director Neville Wakefield, who is presenting the exhibition, Lang’s floor-to-ceiling columnar forms — made of scraps of fabrics, fur, feathers, leather, plastic, hair and metal from more than 25 years of fashion collections — erase the past and highlight “the transience of our creative endeavors.” The expo runs through Aug. 8.