As we have been to Paris for the launch party of our recent Paris Paname Issue at Chez Justin a couple weeks ago I got introduced by Thomas Busuttil to Clem Brunel, who is next to Lucas Puig and Stéphen Khou one of the three main guys behind the French fashion brand that is associated with the infamous umbrella symbol, Hélas.

Actually, I wanted to ask Clem if there would be a chance to buy some caps from him before I would had to head back home to Berlin because they currently are still rarely sold over here. Clem kindly invited me and my peeps to meet him at his office to be in a more quiet atmosphere to talk and to have some coffee, as well.

The Hélas office is located in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. On the outside it has some beautiful old wooden framed glass windows were some caps and cloths are shown. Behind the window is a sort of tiny showroom followed by a narrow corridor that leads into a second larger room that serves as storage space.

Clem friendly received us with the before promised cups of coffee and after we had sat down around a table in the middle of the stockroom we naturally began to talk about the developments of the company, for example the switch from making caps only to producing a broader range of cloths, and also we talked about the upcoming projects and collections.

As it turned out, we happened to be there just shortly before the new collection was going to arrive and the office would have turned into a full packed space where one is barely able to walk through. He also told us that they are currently working on a new Hélas video project that they want to drop very soon.

At the end, Clem provided everyone of us with some fresh head covering and we fixed to meet again in Berlin for the Bright Tradeshow. Thanks for having us, Clem!

Today morning at 00:01 the new spring collection was dropped as a quickstrike! Beneath you find some product pictures from the lookbook presented by Hélas very own model boy JB Gillet. To get Hélas products visit the online shop that also provides worldwide shipping.

Text by Paul Roehrs

Photos by Danny Sommerfeld

Lookbook shots by Nikwen