From Rick Owens: “Our last show presented a white satin army of love, my response to the realization that holding the previous season’s shows in my house with a reduced audience ended up being an act of exclusion instead of the observance of respect in the face of our current wars that I had intended.
I have once again asked all the fashion schools in Paris to send us students and faculty, to walk in the show as an expression of unity and reliance on one another. Also included are members of the Owenscorp team and friends whom I admire for living their aesthetic so completely and generously, like Hannah Dalton from Fecal Matter, artist BaybJane, photographer Kristina Nagel, and Allanah Starr, one of the grande dames of the trans community from NY to Paris. Last season’s collection was named ‘Porterville’ after the small judgmental town I had to escape from.
This season’s collection is named ‘Hollywood’ after the boulevard of vice I gleefully ran to…to find my people… weirdos and freaks… living in a world Lou Reed described in ‘Walk on the Wild Side’… I was looking for the flaming creatures I had seen filmed by Jack Smith and Kenneth Anger… or Ken Russell. And I always reference the lost Hollywood of pre-code black and white biblical epics, mixing art deco, lurid sin and redeeming morality. Rigid tailoring is transparent and delicate in silk chiffon and tulle to be worn as fragile capes, over thrashed denim cutoffs and this season’s deflated version of last season’s inflated boots made in collaboration with London designer Straytukay. The boots on most looks also have added shin cargopacks.
Flowing capes or megafrilled donut shrugs also come in silk chiffon woven in the Como region of Italy and made from GOTS certified organic silk which means the natural fiber is made without harmful chemicals. Soft hooded tunics in charmeuse or transparent jersey are made of cupro, a biodegradable and 100% plant-based fiber made from cotton waste that would otherwise be discarded. Black charmeuse robes are from Fina, a collection designed by Dafne Balatsos who has been working with me for 25 years— for the first five years, just the 2 of us and one sewer. Back then, part of her job was to go buy a few meters of silk at Oriental Silks on Beverly Boulevard in Hollywood to fill our small orders since I could only afford a few meters at a time.
Oriental Silks was a hushed and meticulously organized sandalwood incense smelling store run by a quietly severe brother and sister team who were very kind to us. A few years ago, when she found out Oriental Silks had closed, she tracked down their remaining stock and has been making beautiful robes and pajamas for us all and agreed to sell them in our U.S. stores… Transposable zipped jackets and coats are made in rigid cotton and recycled polyester canvas made on vintage narrow looms as a part of our ongoing collaboration with Bonotto, a 4th generation textile mill founded in 1912 situated just below the Prealps in Veneto.
Hooded girder-shouldered biker jackets are cropped or oversized and made in veg tanned lamb hide from the Solofra region of Italy, or made from Italian-tanned jumbo scaled American alligator. Knit gowns in dust grey merino wool or metallic gold are a continuation of our collaboration with Tanja Vidic, a knitwear designer from Slovenia who makes the most imaginative DIY knits I have ever seen. Goddess gowns are cut in denim with a tarnished gold megacrust coating. All our denim is treated in an Italian wash house based in the Veneto area of Italy that produces in smaller treatment baths to reduce water waste and utilize a water purifying process that enables them to recycle a portion of the water used.
All of our denim washes are ZDHC certified. Our black leather art deco crowns are made in collaboration with Coco Lucquaïd, a Parisian hat making institution. Expressing our individuality is great but sometimes we need to embrace our commonalities… especially in the face of the peak intolerance we are experiencing in the world right now.”
Photos: Owenscorp / Courtesy of Rick Owens
Casting: Angus Munro (CLM)
Hair: Duffy (Streeters)
Makeup: MAC Cosmetics and Daniel Sallstrom (MA World Group)
Production: La Mode en Images
Music: Wagner, Tristan und Isolde Prelude to Act 1, Langsam und Schmachtend conducted by Christian Thielemann with the Wiener Staatsoper Orchestra mixed by Jeff Judd
www.rickowens.eu
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Highlights from the Collection
