Paul Helbers

Paul Helbers is a Dutch fashion designer whose career connects the experiments of Maison Martin Margiela with the luxury menswear of Louis Vuitton and The Row. His interest lies in how clothes are made and how they feel in use, bringing tailoring techniques into sportswear and a sense of movement into formal dress.

Originally from Rotterdam, Helbers studied at Amsterdam’s Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Royal College of Art in London. He worked for Dutch retailer Mac & Maggie before co-founding Inch in the 1990s. That early label established a recurring interest in combining the construction of sportswear with tailoring fabrics.

As studio director at Maison Martin Margiela, he developed his approach within a house that treated an ordinary garment as material for investigation. He subsequently led menswear at Louis Vuitton under Marc Jacobs from 2006 to 2011. The collections gave luxury a practical point of departure, from the bicycle messenger inspiration of spring 2010 to the Amish references and dark tailoring of fall-winter 2011.

Helbers launched his namesake menswear label in January 2016 with a fall-winter 2016 collection. Relaxed tailoring and athletic clothing met through close attention to fabric and construction, with production based in Italy. In a Fashionista interview, he described a personal uniform developed through experience, with functionality shaped by the demands of working and traveling. The ambition was clothing that allowed the wearer to keep his own identity.

He later became the founding head menswear designer at The Row, helping develop the wardrobe introduced in 2018. The move placed his knowledge of materials and garment construction within Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s approach to luxury.

With FFORME, which debuted in 2022, he applied that experience to womenswear, working directly through draping and the construction of garments. He served as the label’s founding creative director until his departure in July 2024. Across these different settings, Helbers has returned to a practical design question, how the work inside a garment can give its wearer greater ease.