In May of 2024, Dion Lee made headlines when his eponymous label was placed in voluntary administration in his native Australia by Cue Clothing Company, which owned 70% of the business.The news came as a shock for industry watchers, particularly stateside where Lee had built a robust customer base. In addition to his stores in Australia, Lee had opened a retail destination in Miami in 2023 and was readying a New York flagship. He had shown his fall 2024 collection—what would turn out to be his last for the brand—in Shanghai a month prior to the news. From the outside looking in, everything seemed to be running smoothly. It wasn’t. But now, a year and a half later, Lee is back with a new project.
Today, Lee is launching Haelo (stylized HÆLO), a new label under his creative direction. In the time between the effective dissolution of his eponymous line and today’s launch, Lee relocated from New York to Paris, saw the Dion Lee brand scooped up by Revolve (a backer and the exclusive retail partner for this new venture, together with Fwrd), and turned 40. Until recently, he’s remained mostly mum about the breakdown of the business he had built over the course of 15 years, first in Australia and subsequently in New York.
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
“Without going too deep into the business black hole,” Lee says with a laugh, calling from Los Angeles where the new brand is based (Lee splits his time between Southern California and France), “Haelo started with the opportunity to create a new brand,” he says. “Having only designed for myself, I was really excited by the opportunity.” The designer says that it felt refreshing to conceptualize a new label from the start, building out “the look and feel from the identity and the product to the communications, and to do that from a new perspective.”
The idea of building something new that wasn’t attached to his name and personal identity held appeal. “It was a nice departure from my previous experience,” he says, “having had so much of my personal identity ingrained in what I was doing.” This was followed by a concession: “There is obviously an element of design handwriting that is so built into everything that you do. Even though we sometimes try to distance ourselves from that, it’s pretty consistent in terms of how I like to do things, how clean things are.” Meaning, the neat, sharp language that had become Lee’s signature remains, only here it’s offset by a little more softness. “It was definitely an exercise of trying to push myself out of that comfort zone, but then knowing that it makes sense to come back to a certain place at the same time.”
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
Playing on the idea of a halo, the brand’s aesthetic angelic references with almost gothic ones. There’s also “this idea of afterlife,” he says, “an afterlife of my own brand, that was fun to play with—this motif of coming back to life and resurrection.”
Though recognizably Dion Lee with its cutouts and strategically placed sheer panels, slits, and such, this first iteration of Haelo does venture into softer fabrications like draped silks and lace elements. “I definitely tried to push things, but I think the other part of that conversation was also me thinking about what does Dion Lee look like in the future?”
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
Photo: Hart Lëshkina / Courtesy of Haelo
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