We were back at Rick Owens’ Place du Palais Bourbon villa today. As he did during January’s men’s season, Owens traded the bombast (his word) of his Palais de Tokyo shows for a lineup that was more on time.
Owens’ unique, expansive vision remains large enough for the monumental Palais. Bat sleeves grazed the earlobes, body armor wrapped the torsos like protective shells, and leather and down boots that resembled space suits on the inflatable rubber ones he put on his men’s catwalk, as if his models had just returned from a walk. on the moon. The deep pink dress worn by Hannah Rose Dalton of Matières Fécales looked as if wings had sprouted from the back.
But the presentation of chez lui – the former headquarters of the French Socialist Party and a space that Owens has in the past called “gentle, eternal and raw,” an apt description – gave him a reason to focus on smaller gestures as well to concentrate. Such as sweater dresses that hug the body from the neckline to platform shoes, with a porthole at the back to show off an enchanting tattoo, for example, and extremely elegant, diagonally draped dresses, adorned with sheepskin capes that reflected his obsession with 1930s references – hello, Jean Harlow.
“It’s not easy for a lot of designers to be that autobiographical,” says Owens, and he wasn’t just referring to the fact that he hit the real estate jackpot when he bought his house 20 years ago. As one of the last independent designers in Paris, he has fewer voices in his ears and is independent enough to do what he wants. This was a collection in which his Gothic instincts battled it out with his penchant for goddess-like silhouettes – both honed during his childhood as an outsider – and both sides emerged victorious.
“When I talk about Porterville” — his California hometown, whose name appeared in an Art Deco font marching across the capes — “I’m talking about oppression and intolerance, and that’s a fact of life that will never go away.” he said. “Part of my role in life is to compensate for that with this cheerful perversity.”
He pointed out that the shaggy mohair coats with sheepskin swatches adding definition to their shoulders were modeled after army blanket versions he made in his early days as a designer on Hollywood Boulevard, the first place he could be who he wanted to be. Reviving it was less an act of nostalgia, an overused trend in current fashion, than a gesture of hope.
“I offer options other than the narrow, strict, almost cruel aesthetic standards we are bombarded with every day,” he said. “It’s not an aggressive war, it’s a gentle plague: let’s blur the lines. Blurring the lines aesthetically blurs other views of acceptance.” The online trolls are probably beyond help, but this show was a reminder to other designers, independent and otherwise, of the power and persuasiveness of fierce authenticity.
