Helas

Helas was founded in 2013 in Paris by French skater Lucas Puig and his partners as a deliberately-skate-and-tennis-club-aesthetic streetwear brand specifically focused on what the founders described as 'a deliberately-French-skate-club visual culture anchored to early-2000s French tennis-club graphic-design aesthetic.' The brand has been one of the defining post-2013 Paris-anchored 'French-skate-club' streetwear brands. The Helas vocabulary settled around several recurring elements: heavyweight cotton tees, polos, and hoodies with the brand's iconic Helas typography logo and deliberately-tennis-club-aesthetic graphic-design references, deconstructed denim and workwear-derived skate trousers, the brand's iconic Helas bucket-hat and headwear programme, the long-running Helas × Nike SB, Helas × adidas, Helas × Lacoste, and Helas × Tommy Jeans collaboration capsules (the Helas × Lacoste 2018 collaboration was a defining cultural moment), and a colour palette anchored to washed-cream, washed-navy, oxblood, ecru, plus the brand's recurring use of saturated red, electric-blue, butter-yellow, and the iconic French-tennis-club-aesthetic accent combinations. The brand is independent and held by the founders. Helas operates a flagship retail concept in Paris (Le Marais — the brand's home neighbourhood) plus international wholesale through HBX, Patta, Slam Jam Milan, Dover Street Market, the broader European-and-American skate-specialty distribution including Civilist Berlin, Pop Trading Company, and Yardsale, and a substantial Japanese-skate-specialty distribution. The brand has been one of the defining post-2013 Paris-anchored 'French-skate-club-aesthetic' brands.