Rick Owens

Rick Owens still believes in love. “Considering joy a moral obligation, I propose a stark elegance,” Rick Owens wrote of his highly romantic collection veiled in fuchsia and yellow smoke bombs and rose petals shot out of canons across the courtyard of Palais de Tokyo. “I use it because I’m determined to find joy in life. Because moping around is lazy,” Owens said after the phenomenal show, referring to his use of the word in the show notes. Isn’t his moping around part of the reason we love him? “I know, and I’m good at it. That’s my superpower. But I can’t be lazy and just fall into it. You can’t be passive. You have to be a top,” he smiled. It generated a show that felt like a melancholy march for joy. Models with funeral veils wore narrow floor-length skirts elevated on platform boots, embroidered evening dresses that looked as if they’d been bandaged, and voluminous jumpsuits styled with majestic capes. A palette of black and delicate grey faded into lilacs, passionate reds and golden cognac. For years, Owens conveyed in his work a deep sadness for cultures and environments in decline. Now, he’s being more constructive. “Well, that’s why I talk about hope so much. I allow myself to think about hope because in the history of the world there have always been evil forces, but somehow the good forces have always managed to barely overpower. Because we’re still here. We managed. So, you just have to have faith in the force of goodness.” Don’t think the Rick Owens show was all rose petal confetti, though. “Everything dies,” he said, concluding his pep talk for hope. “Things do get destroyed and something else happens. Everything dies. We always forget that. We’re always trying to be immortal and have things last forever. ‘Oh, they’re [bringing] down this building and it’s a historical monument.’ Well, everything dies. And things replace it. So, that’s my hope-slash-doom message,” Owens smiled. As the underpinning of one of the designer’s most moving and ravishing collections probably ever, it was an empowering one.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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The super-slender silhouettes of the models walking the Rick Owens spring-summer 2024 fashion show were both ethereal and disturbing. As the designer observed from backstage, even portlier people could work the season’s elongated look: those pants sat high to create a center-point at the base of the sternum, north of the paunch. His simultaneously ancient and futuristic Italian-crafted riff on Victorian stricture, structure, and suture – those hard shoulders against the coiling soft folds of draped silk organza – contrasted with a more primitive habit: goth-phase Flintstones fare. There were high top versions of his leg-brace boots and “brutalist concrete sandals.” The parade of statuesque, elegant goths was accompanied by abrupt fireworks, detonated from towering rigs set in the Palais de Tokyo pool. The eruptions filled the space with swirls of purple and yellow smoke. The smell of cordite was in the air. Ash rained down (reportedly, one of the editors’ brand new bag got irrevocably stained). The scene seemed simultaneously apocalyptic and ecstatic. That’s how Owens feels lately. “Maybe it’s just to celebrate while we can. Is that what people are feeling?” Arguably, the designer was having his cake and eating it; yet this was mindful consumption, contradiction with a cause, fashion with a profound position.