Rick Owens’ dark poetry

Those platforms with that unmistakable grill punctuate the small steps of devoted who are cautiously approaching the Palais de Tokyo, trying to find their places along the walkway that runs around that pool of water where burning boules fell last June. Yesterday there was fire, today there was rain that stops just before the Rick Owens show, Lido, begins.

The pool is propped up with totems like menacing scaffolding of steel beams that burst rivulets of smoke into the air. The shots above are colorful, while below, on the platform, tall, thin, gloomy figures emerge. They look like Alberto Giacometti sculptures, slender but monumental, their silhouette unnaturally elongated and with a strange power. The soundtrack, a mix by Lil Texas, is punctuated by the firecrackers of red, yellow, blue mist that slowly descends to the ground and like a blanket covers and almost dyes the line of black looks. «With the condition of our world increasingly threatened, joy seems the wrong note, but perhaps it is the only correct moral response» Rick Owens wondered in his open letter. «Beyond ‘being kind to one another, is not personal joy what we were put on earth to do?»

The concept of joy for the designer is comprehensible to others when placed in a world of darkness and gloom that surrounds him, as unique and identifiable as Owens’ stylistic language in which the term is embraced. «I propose a dark and determined elegance, in a formal, sober, and certainly dramatic black. The way one deals with adversity defines one’s character,» he said. The chest is left bare, or traversed by twisting drapes, or covered by short jackets with endless but very thin sleeves clinging to the arms and large shoulders. High-waisted rigorous and structured trousers extend well beyond the legs, dragging on the floor. Tailored coats create an imposing silhouette, while other more technical coats swell as parachutes as they pass by, and some have important trainings as if they are couture pieces. On the feet, boots are like padded braces and soft cushions fold, acting like protective shields.

Judgment. Rick Owens is a more a conviction rather than a fashion brand. Wearing it means making a statement, declaring a belonging and an identity. The clothes expose and at the same time protect from the world, and sometimes they repeat themselves. However, knowing who you are and repeating it is never a mistake. (All rights reserved)