Designer Rick Owens blends the strange and alluring, creating a world that’s truly one-of-a-kind.
By MAX BERLINGER
With his angular features, long, straight black hair, and his gym-chiseled frame cocooned in his own Grecian-Galactic ready-to-wear, Rick Owens is a sight to behold. The iconoclastic designer has been creating visual feasts—fashion as sculpture, clothes as armor - for more than twenty years, and today has a reputation in the fashion industry that hovers somewhere between cult mainstay and boundary-pushing elder statesman. His vision of glamour is unexpected and stark, yet at the same time, it transcends typical ideas of beauty to present something darker and transfixing; a more inclusive and exciting vision of what fashion can ask of its wearer.
Mr. Owens was born in Porterville, California and studied painting and sculpture in Los Angeles before moving into the world of fashion design, learning pattern making and draping and creating a ready-to-wear collection in 1994. In 2002, he presented his first collection at New York Fashion Week, a manifesto of moody glamour and hard-edged rock ’n’ roll cool that has been at the heart of his work ever since. He subsequently left the West Coast for Paris where his company is currently based. In recent years his work with its languid silhouettes, dramatic draping, and asymmetrical lines have made his runway shows the most anticipated of the Paris leg of fashion week. His look both foretold the current mania for streetwear and the sporty aesthetic currently dominating the industry but also pushed it forward in an intelligent, expansive way. One thing he’s always done, though, is create a look that is utterly unique and completely recognizable.
“There is an earnestness to what I do. It can be corny, that I would probably make fun of, but it’s about genuinely connecting with people who believe in a certain kind of rigorous pursuit of a certain aesthetic. It’s a very specific aesthetic that I’ve been very loyal to and I think people have responded to that. They respect somebody who has a very strong opinion on something. And this opinion is inclusive and tolerant and affectionate and has a fair amount of drama—and everybody loves a little drama.”