×
6 417
Fashion Jobs
WAITROSE
Customer Delivery Driver- Coulsdon Customer Fulfilment Centre
Permanent · LONDON
JOHN LEWIS
Loss Prevention Partner
Permanent · LONDON
HOLLISTER CO. STORES
Hollister CO. - Brand Representative, Braehead
Permanent · Renfrew
LEVI'S
Digital Marketing Manager
Permanent · London
DR. MARTENS
Employee Relations Manager UK & eu
Permanent · LONDON
NEXT
Stock Coordinator - Lincoln Valentine Retail Park
Permanent ·
HARVEY NICHOLS
Facilities Manager
Permanent · LEEDS
FRASERS GROUP
Performance Marketing Manager
Permanent · STRETFORD
RAINS
Category Sales Manager, Bags And Accessories, UK
Permanent · LONDON
PRIMARK
Retail Construction Project Manager
Permanent · READING
ASOS
Finance Manager
Permanent · LONDON
L'OREAL GROUP
Lancôme, Deputy Business Manager, 1.0, Peter Jones London
Permanent · London
L'OREAL GROUP
Kiehl's Solo Account Manager, 1.0, Tunbridge Wells
Permanent · Royal Tunbridge Wells
NEXT
Sales Manager - Nottingham Giltbrook
Permanent · NOTTINGHAM
NEXT
Delivery Coordinator - Icon o2 Clearance
Permanent · LONDON
NEXT
Delivery Manager - Glasgow
Permanent · GLASGOW
NEXT
Delivery Coordinator - Newry Quays
Permanent · NEWRY
NEXT
Van Driver - Manchester Trafford
Permanent · MANCHESTER
ESTÉE LAUDER
Tom Ford - Assistant Business Manager - Harrods - 37,5hrs
Permanent · London
DR. MARTENS
Retail Operations Coordinator
Permanent · SHANG HAI SHI
EVERLAST GYMS
General Assistant (Cleaning Team) - Everlast Gyms
Permanent · CARLISLE
FLANNELS
Management Opportunities - Flannels
Permanent · CHESHUNT
Ads
Published
Mar 4, 2022
Reading time
3 minutes
Download
Download the article
Print
Click here to print
Text size
aA+ aA-

Rick Owens: Grace amid darkening clouds

Published
Mar 4, 2022

With war clouds darkening all of Europe, one witnessed a moment of grace and grandeur at Rick Owens Thursday evening in Paris, as an ethereal cast emerged out of giant engulfing clouds - statuesque, solitary and sensational.


Rick Owens Fall/Winter 2022 collection in Paris - FashionNetwork.com/Godfrey Deeny


Many of the cast carrying portable fog machines spouting plumes of faux fog which gradually engulfed the entire show space inside the Palais de Tokyo. Suggesting a medieval enclave of holy folk carrying fashionable thuribles.
 
A collection imagined before the very idea that Putin’s Russia might invade Ukraine, yet somehow a prescient vision of society and fashion. And an oblique comment on the duty to remain noble, amid the brutal reality of a megalomaniac gangster’s attack on a neighboring sovereign state.

Rick Owens operates at the frontier of fashion and art, rarely more so than in this show, staged at the mid-way point of the nine-day Paris Fashion Week. No wonder the two hippest gallery owners in London and Paris – Jay Jopling and Thaddaeus Ropac – sat front row, perched on socially distanced metal benches. A busy Thursday in Paris with seven official calendar shows; and scores of digital displays and presentations. Though the unquestioned highpoint was Owens’ collection, entitled 'Strobe Women'.
 
A softer, subtler Owens, ironically – given the images of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson - devoid of the post Armageddon aesthetic of recent shows. Models towering over the audience, over everyone really, in massive platforms with mini radiator shaped toes; or cut-out thigh boots in shearling. Made in the bi-product of the food industry and sourced from LWG-certified family run tanneries. Even the reflective fabrics were woven from yarn made from glass.


Rick Owens Fall/Winter 2022 collection in Paris - FashionNetwork.com/Godfrey Deeny


 
Wrapped in huge cloaks; substantial tunics and cowls in combinations of recycled nylon, velvet, washed denim and alpaca felt, in a reference to Rick’s great muse Joseph Beuys. Coats finished with elusive materials at collar and shoulder – like snakeskin or pirarucu, a Brazilian fish-skin sourced from a tannery, which guarantees that the fish are used as food, before their skins help support a local community.
 
“I don’t mention this out of virtuousness, we definitely have room to improve. I just like promoting the conversation fashion is having about responsibility,” remarked the California-born, but latterly Venice, Italy-based, designer.
 
Though the most beautiful passages were the exotic grand gowns composed of what Big Rick called “gobs and fistfuls of dust colored sequins.” Cut as columns or bias cut dresses, and finished with huge chunky knots of fabric at the top. Wafting in and out of the misty plumes, appearing and disappearing to the soundtrack Mahler’s 5th symphony, sadly ideal given the current horrendous war, and the cowardly invasion of Ukraine.
 
A point addressed by Owens in his final remarks: “I have always found great comfort that in the history of the world good has somehow always managed to triumph over evil. During times of heartbreak, beauty can be one of the ways to maintain faith.”
 
Pulchritudo bello victos.

Copyright © 2023 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.