An explosive melange of the sophisticated and the primal, Rick Owens’ Spring/Summer 2024 collection is a bold, breathtaking romp through silhouette and symbolism. Amidst a surreal backdrop of purple and yellow swirls of smoke from detonating fireworks at the Palais de Tokyo pool, Owens delivers an avant-garde amalgamation of fashion that questions, provokes, and enthralls. It’s a couture cavalcade that masterfully marries high-waisted, cinched trousers and broad-shouldered silhouettes with the ecstasy of apocalyptic aesthetics.
The Rick Owens Spring/Summer 2024 collection paints a narrative canvas, bursting with vibrant colors and drama, striking a balance between theatrical extravagance and cutting-edge sartorial innovation. It’s a theatrical spectacle, underlined by a searing, introspective exploration of contemporary trends and cultural shifts.
The visionary designer conjures up a world that is both ancient and futuristic, where the scent of cordite lingers in the air and ash rains down like confetti. The tableau vivant seems almost in response to the financial and environmental summits taking place in the same city, reflecting the intersection of grandeur and impending global crises. Owens, a master of paradox, embeds an enigmatic question in his collection, questioning whether the present surge in luxury consumption is a primal response to fear, a celebration of survival or an act of delicious denial.
The collection, aptly named “Lido”, a nostalgic nod to Owens‘s home across from Venice, explores the persistent spirit of fashion in times of adversity. It echoes the designer’s sentiments of persevering amidst pandemic-induced solitude, of “forging ahead” regardless of external circumstances. With an appreciative nod to Diana Ross’s rain-lashed 1983 concert, Owens articulates an unstoppable fashion narrative, an attitude that weathers all storms, both literal and metaphorical.
Unfolding amidst this backdrop is Owens’s intricate interplay of silhouettes, a strategic combination of hard shoulders and draped silk organza folds. These elements seemingly transport us to the era of Victorian stricture and structure, brilliantly juxtaposed with an air of primitive rawness reminiscent of prehistoric fashion. Owens further extends this aesthetic with high-top versions of his signature leg-brace boots and “brutalist concrete sandals“, a nod to the paradoxical pairing of grit and grace.
Rick Owens’ Spring/Summer 2024 collection is an exploration into the collective subconscious, a journey into our responses to an ever-changing world. It’s a thought-provoking spectacle that interrogates our relationship with luxury and how we perceive it in an era of ecological and societal challenges. It’s a critique, a celebration, a question, and an answer – all wrapped in an extravagant package of disruptive aesthetics. It’s a testament to the time-honored adage – fashion is indeed a reflection of the times we live in, a commentary echoing societal shifts. In the case of Owens’ latest collection, it is fashion’s triumphant boom amidst the storm, a beautiful bang for the fashionably damned.
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