{"id":717897,"date":"2025-11-20T20:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T17:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=717897"},"modified":"2025-11-20T20:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T17:34:10","slug":"dion-lee-is-back-just-not-how-you-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=717897","title":{"rendered":"Dion Lee Is Back, Just Not How You Expected"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Runway<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Dion Lee Is Back, Just Not How You Expected<\/h1>\n
By <\/span>Jos\u00e9 Criales-Unzueta<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

November 20, 2025<\/p>\n

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    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\u2014what would turn out to be his last for the brand\u2014in Shanghai a month prior to the news. From the outside looking in, everything seemed to be running smoothly. It wasn\u2019t. But now, a year and a half later, Lee is back with a new project.<\/p>\n

    Today, Lee is launching Haelo (stylized H\u00c6LO), a new label under his creative direction. In the time between the effective dissolution of his eponymous line and today\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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    \u201cWithout going too deep into the business black hole,\u201d Lee says with a laugh, calling from Los Angeles where the new brand is based (Lee splits his time between Southern California and France), \u201cHaelo started with the opportunity to create a new brand,\u201d he says. \u201cHaving only designed for myself, I was really excited by the opportunity.\u201d The designer says that it felt refreshing to conceptualize a new label from the start, building out \u201cthe look and feel from the identity and the product to the communications, and to do that from a new perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

    The idea of building something new that wasn\u2019t attached to his name and personal identity held appeal. \u201cIt was a nice departure from my previous experience,\u201d he says, \u201chaving had so much of my personal identity ingrained in what I was doing.\u201d This was followed by a concession: \u201cThere 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\u2019s pretty consistent in terms of how I like to do things, how clean things are.\u201d Meaning, the neat, sharp language that had become Lee\u2019s signature remains, only here it\u2019s offset by a little more softness. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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    Playing on the idea of a halo, the brand\u2019s aesthetic angelic references with almost gothic ones. There\u2019s also \u201cthis idea of afterlife,\u201d he says, \u201can afterlife of my own brand, that was fun to play with\u2014this motif of coming back to life and resurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n

    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. \u201cI 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

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    About a future Dion Lee label: \u201cI think it\u2019s worth me saying that it\u2019s something that I\u2019m working on and something I\u2019m exploring for the distant future,\u201d says Lee about his own label. \u201cI love the world in which I have the opportunity to do both of these brands, because I think they\u2019re very contrasting as well,\u201d he explains, \u201cI also see the perspective of my own brand becoming more mature and moving more towards my personal identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Haelo is launching today, but it\u2019s already out in the world. Blackpink\u2019s Lisa wore a Haelo ensemble last week onstage in Jakarta. Another would-be muse for Lee is Rosal\u00eda, who happens to have a bleached halo in her hair at the moment as she promotes her new album Lux<\/em>, and whom Lee outfitted for her Motomami<\/em> tour.<\/p>\n

    Lee\u2019s alignment with music and Los Angeles will come into sharper focus next month as Haelo drops a music video with a to-be-announced artist that the designer has directed. Does Lee miss the runway? Sure, but he\u2019s happy exploring different mediums for now. \u201cI\u2019m really grateful to have the opportunity to approach things with a fresh perspective,\u201d he says, \u201cand to have that break in time that really allowed me to take stock of how I work and what inspires me.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Haelo will be available for purchase online at Haelo.world and exclusively on Revolve and Fwrd. The pieces in the collection will retail for under $1,000, with a leather jacket and more technically complex dresses on the higher end. The balance of pieces\u2014tops and simpler dresses\u2014will fall in the $200-$400 range.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

    Source URL: http:\/\/vogue.com\/article\/dion-lee-is-back-just-not-how-you-expected<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Runway Dion Lee Is Back, Just Not How You Expected By Jos\u00e9 Criales-Unzueta November 20, 2025 Photo: Hart L\u00ebshkina \/ Courtesy of Haelo 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":717898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-717897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=717897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/717898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=717897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=717897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=717897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}