| Rick Owens Spring 2027 was shown on a sloping runway built over the reflecting pool at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The collection included many stone-colored column dresses. One black tulle gown carried a grid-like surface called brutalist lace. Rick Owens Furniture, consolidated in 2007, is shown at VOENA in Milan until November 20th. |
If you follow Paris fashion, you know that a Rick Owens show rarely looks like anyone else’s. Rick Owens Spring 2027 was no exception. Models walked slowly down a sloping runway built over the reflecting pool at the Palais de Tokyo, and the first thing you noticed was the color: a pale, stone-like shade on dress after dress.
Columns, steel and stoicism
Many of the dresses were cut as straight columns. Some were stiff and flared out as they crossed the steel grating of the runway. Others used light, sheer fabrics that lifted in the wind. Several were topped with car coats in double duchesse, a heavy silk that gave the silhouettes a formal edge.
Owens explained the idea behind them simply. Looking at the dresses, he thought of stoicism, the kind of dignity he says is always on his mind.
Tougher fabrics take over
One slim gown was made of black tulle with a spiky, grid-like surface. Owens calls it “brutalist lace.” Elsewhere, fabric stuck out in sharp points along the collarbone, and long denim skirts carried a geometric bustle at the back.
As the show went on, the clothes grew more rugged. Sulfur-dyed denim became vaguely futuristic tunics and flaring trousers, as well as small, sturdy rompers. Under some of the dresses, the models’ feet were wrapped in thick ropes of crystal. Owens shrugged off the choice, saying that pretty, sparkly shoes would have been the most perverse thing he could do.
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Tensegrity, softened
You may remember the tensegrity pieces from his men’s show last June. Those cage-like trousers combined leather and rubber wrapped around aluminum bars. For women, he swapped the rigid parts for frothy tulle threaded onto elastic cords, and the result covered the whole body.
Owens admits the idea is “ridiculous,” and that willingness to laugh at himself is part of the appeal. He says the pieces turned into negligees in his mind. He tried them on and found that sitting was not a problem. The elastic shifts everything around, he said, and it all snaps back when you stand up.
Furniture shares the same logic
The same thinking applies to Rick Owens Furniture, the atelier he and Michèle Lamy, his partner and collaborator, consolidated in 2007. It works with plywood, concrete, bronze, petrified wood, bone and antler. A piece such as the Tomb Stag Chair draws on Eileen Gray, Jean-Michel Frank, Claude Parent and the concrete fortifications of the Normandy coast studied by Paul Virilio.
You can see the furniture in two cities. In Milan, the VOENA gallery at via della Spiga 1 hosts DIALOGUES. Carol Rama with Rick Owens Furniture until November 20th. In Paris, the Carpenters Workshop Gallery opens Five Easy Pieces on October 20th.
