A terrible child of the underground Los Angeles, Rick Owens has taken the necessary steps to exercise the most radical fashion, beginning with the foundation of an expressly stamped business.
RICK OWENS, A DISSENTING VISION OF FASHION
This Californian by birth grew up in Porterville, alongside a teacher mother and a father social worker. The latter, as fervent believers, raise it in the pure Catholic moral tradition.
As a young man, he decided to leave his hometown to study painting and sculpture at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, before specializing in fashion.
For lack of financial means, he abandons his studies and starts directly in the active life. He then finds a job within a niche clothing brand, where he helps cut out the patterns.
His boss is none other than Michèle Lamy, a whimsical personality then owner of two restaurants where the all-Hollywood loved to sit, the landmark and asked him to make a collection for men. Then, by the force of things, she will become his wife but also his most faithful collaborator.
In 1994, Rick Owens challenged himself to found his own home. Immediately, his first creations are sold exclusively at Charles Gallay, an avant-garde LA concept store.
An assertive and subversive visionary, the young creator immediately stands on the sidelines of established trends, instinctively following his penchant for biased silhouettes (scuffed jersey t-shirts, unstructured skirts and seamans with asymmetrical hems, etc.).
Credit: Imaxtree / Daniele Oberrauch
RICK OWENS, THE FULGURING ASCENSION
In 2001, Rick Owens wanted to expand his company internationally with the help of Eo Bocci Associati. Thus, the following year, he organized his first parade during the New York Fashion Week. It's a triumph.
Awarded the Perry Ellis prize of the new talent, the LVMH behemoth even offers him the position of artistic director of the brand Donna Karan. An offer he hastens to decline.
From then on, he achieved the feat of living completely autonomously in a tumultuous industry ruled by a few all-powerful luxury groups, while continuing to expand this shifted vision of the garment.
The aesthetic of Owens punk is then considered intransigent, obscure, even aggressive or downright hardcore.
Renamed "The Lord of darkness", this partisan of the grunge look explores the stylistic darkness through beautiful draperies, eloquent gathers, mixtures of materials, comparisons between opacity, transparency and inversion of volumes. Without forgetting the leather that he relaxed season after season, to better erect it as the emblem of the house.
In 2003, the world of fashion won the New Talent Award at the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).
Credit: Imaxtree / Daniele Oberrauch
RICK OWENS, A STYLE AGITATOR
That same year, Rick Owens moved to Paris where he set up his workshops in the former headquarters of the PS, a five-storey building located on Place du Palais-Bourbon in the 7th arrondissement.
The reason for this move? A contract of artistic director at the furrier Revillon. Post he will occupy until 2006.
At the same time, the American designer continues to develop his brand by inaugurating a first boutique at 130-133 Galerie de Valois in Paris. Soon, other shops will be born in Seoul, Hong Kong, Miami, Tokyo, New York or London.
He also diversifies his stylistic proposals with several secondary lines including RickOwensLilies, younger and more affordable, DRKSHDW, centered on denim, as well as a line of art furniture which is created by his wife.
Having become a sort of provocative guru of fashion, agitator of styles and inspiration of unsuspected tendencies, Rick Owens creates the event at each of his parades, mostly organized below the Palais de Tokyo.
Credit: Imaxtree / Daniele Oberrauch
Undisputed master of staging, he gives himself the right to do anything: invite the Estonian rock band Winny Puhh, flaunt the genitals of his models when he does not replace them by stepping dancers ...
If at his shows, the notion of "portable" clothing seems often relative, his creations adhere to other principles, those of freedom, daring and impertinence. As for the mid-Gothic, half-futuristic darkness, which seems to them just as intrinsic, it is tempered by a neo-sophisticated elegance of which he alone has the secret.
By clearly displaying divergent styles, Rick Owens has gained unparalleled status in the fashion industry: a kind of mystical priest who has celebrated the union of glamor and grunge and whose circle of insiders continues to grow. 'enlarge.
Leader of an independent company, whose turnover is close to 100 million euros per year, he has also turned upside down dress habits to better escape the commercial logic of the current consumer society.
