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Rick Owens


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August 14, 2008

Critical Shopper | Rick Owens

Expensive, Sinuous and Sexy

By CINTRA WILSON

“SO, I was at Les Deux Cafés in Los Angeles a few years ago,†enthused Nancy, who wears Rick Owens as often as possible, and was telling me why. “I was sitting by the door in a halter top, shivering a little. And this drop-dead fabulous older woman comes in: tiny-skinny, smoking; wild, black witchy-woman hair; wearing this very clingy Morticia-Addams-meets-Ginger-Rogers look, with her skirt dragging on the floor. Gobs of big wonderful rings. She looks at me and asks in her French accent, ‘Are you cold?’ And she rips this absolutely incredible leather jacket off her body and throws it around my shoulders.â€

“Wow.â€

“Then she sashays away, looks at me over her shoulder, wags her finger and says, ‘Don’t forget, on your way out!’ â€

“Did she instantly become your role model for life?â€

“Completely. So, she turns out to be the Michele Lamy, the owner of Les Deux. Everything she’s wearing is Rick Owens, because he’s her lover. She’s his muse. She’s significantly older, but he fell madly in love with her when he was a crazy twentysomething bisexual. I never wanted to take that jacket off!â€

Rick Owens’s star began its vertical ascent as soon as Los Angeles stores began carrying his designs: drape-y, rough-looking creations in gorgeous materials, wrought into a style he has dubbed “glunge†(grunge plus glamour), which tends to give the wearer an appearance of emerging from the lips of a huge, slightly tattered flower.

His new boutique — big, white and stark — is, like a lot of Owens creations, still unfinished around the edges. But this blind spot has been turned into an advantage. If Mr. Owens were an architect, he would make beautiful ruins.

When I arrived at the shop, Nancy, in the spirit of Madame Lamy, was already swaddled in a long, lean sable coat, moaning with pleasure.

“How much is it?†she asked Antino Angel Crowley, one of Mr. Owens’s willowy, tattooed, beautiful employees. “It’s an apartment, right?â€

“Basically,†Mr. Crowley replied. “It’s $65,000. Which isn’t bad, if you think about it.â€

I tried it, and agreed: not bad. Actually, it was a poem.

“You wouldn’t need an apartment,†I said, half-joking. “This coat is like youth and sex and butter all at the same time. You could sleep on the sidewalk and you would never feel a lack. You wouldn’t even need love.†This coat might have humanized Leona Helmsley.

In 2003, Mr. Owens became the designer for Revillon, a label that has been wrapping women in fur since 1723. Later I read an Owens quotation encapsulating his approach to Revillon:

“It’s about an elegance being tinged with a bit of the barbaric, the sloppiness of something dragging and the luxury of not caring. At Revillon, I felt it wasn’t about displaying one’s wealth, but rather giving the woman a selfish pleasure. It is about using sable as the lining under a very humble jacket, the luxury is all hers.â€

A mink cave-girl stole ($22,344) and a sheared mink coat with amorously wrapping tentacles ($43,610) echoed this sentiment.

RICK OWENS designs are decidedly kinetic; the pieces are made to elongate lines of movement in three dimensions, whereas most clothing is spatially flat — conscious mainly in front and back, and best when standing still. The store employees, hanging around in these slouchy, body-conscious shapes, resemble a modern-dance company.

I tried on a smoky brown, flared coat with a cowl neck and wobbling zipper that Bea Arthur might wear in “The Matrix IV†($4,214). It inspired fooling around in the mirror; the perfect swing-weight of the coat added an ideal billowing slo-mo effect to my bullet-dodging Keanu back bend.

Nancy tried a pair of bias-cut trousers ($995) — very sexy and sharp for something as comfy as lounge wear. The hemless hem was dragging around the unswept stone floor collecting dust, to the admiration of the staff boys, who approved of this Kate Hepburn-in-a-vacant-lot-like spectacle.

I tried a pleated Art Deco Egyptian goddess-skort. It took three tries to get both legs through the proper holes in the light-free dressing room, but once on, it was very tempting to refuse to take it off until the price ($1,136) came down.

Mr. Owens’s aesthetic sometimes requires more hippy élan than one might be capable of.

William Streng, another tattooed sales-beauty in unlaced combat boots, pulled the mohair sleeves of a $568 V-neck sweater down over my fingers.

“But I can’t see my watch!†I complained.

“Who cares?†he shrugged. “Time stops.â€

He had a point.

Mr. Streng was wearing a sheer rayon tank top ($245), frayed into hanging clots at the hem. I’ve always thought it sound to buy good clothes and wear them until they rot. With Rick Owens, this is especially true, because entropy is built in as a plus factor: the tatters look better with age. Like a security blanket, the holes are proof of enduring love.

The mystique of Michele Lamy, a chanteuse with two gold front teeth, is evident all over, but especially in a shelf full of little vicious-looking rat monsters made from sable scraps.

“Those are stash bags,†Nancy whispered.

“How much?†Mr. Crowley asked Mr. Streng.

“They are five, I think.â€

“Hundred?â€

“Thousand.â€

Formidable.

THERE is something both exhilarating and exhausting about super-hipness — its demands can inspire both admiration and a slightly desolate feeling. Hanging out on certain couches can seem as arduous as a camping trip.

The Owens-Lamy Paris home, the former headquarters of the French Socialist Party, was described by Paper magazine as “gargantuan†and “bunker-like.â€

But the clothes, for all their Gothic fury, are deliriously feminine.

Mr. Owens has said he is inspired by Lou Reed’s music. This makes sense: crudely simple melodies sung in an unpretty voice, but suspended in the excruciating tension of an almost unbearably delicate softness and sensitivity.

This mood can create anxiety, like sitting under a lead-glass chandelier that would crash down if not for the brilliant efforts of a single heroic spider. But unsettling settings also inspire relaxed inhibitions, creating the possibility for sudden intimacies to occur between strangers.

Are you cold? Here!

The sable, mes amis, is on the inside.

-NYTimes

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Small Interview here

Rick Owens is the mysterious and the mainstream brought together in one fashion designer. Visitors to his store in Palais Royal in Paris may be mystified by the Madame Tussauds wax scupture of Owens, which he installed himself; but that won’t stop them buying the sort of uniquely cut t-shirt or vest that eventually becomes a wardrobe staple because of the trademark sillhouette that Owens has been developing ever since he was making clothes in his native Los Angeles. Owens moved to Paris from LA five years ago and has been showing his collections in Paris since then. His European presence is about to be strengthened as he opens his first store in London following another recent store opening in New York.

Dazed Digital : Opening two stores in one summer is quite ambitious – why New York and London and why both at the same time?

Rick Owens: It just worked out that way. Believe me, there was no master plan but once we saw how well the Paris store was working, we got into a retail fever.

DD: How many more stores do you envision for Rick Owens and are we to expect worldwide domination?

RO: As time goes on, you start wanting to see how it feels to paint with a different brush. I can't imagine airport stores, but then again, I never imagined going beyond Hollywood Boulevard. I'm pretty satisfied where I am. I don't have the pressure of a superstar under a spotlight, but I have a quiet corner in the fashion world and enough validating response to what

DD: The new Rick Owens store in London is on Audley Street, Mayfair. What attracted you to the area and that particular location?

RO: I don't know London that well, but there seems to be a nice mix there and I love being next to Sadie Cole's gallery.

DD: Do you want all of your stores to have individual concepts?

RO: The location and space really dictate the decor. Paris is plush and insulated in the Palais Royal. New York is bleak and open with a fog machine installation and London will have a waxwork representaiton of my head on a plate for a more classical mood.

DD: What do you think about London in general?

RO: I think the young people are the most beautiful that I've seen anywhere.

DD: Would you ever consider moving back to LA?

RO: I haven't learnt French so I do feel a pleasant detachment but I'm in no hurry to go back to LA. There are so many other places I haven't lived yet and I haven't been back to LA for five years.

DD: Would you consider working for a house like you did for Revillon again, or would you prefer to concentrate on growing and expanding Rick Owens?

RO: I never would have done it to begin with but Revillon was a unique experience. I was mainly attracted to its connection to that Parisian turn of the century artifice moment and to the fact that I had complete control and freedom. It was a lovely experience but I'd like to just do my thing now.

DD: How do reconcile being ‘anti-fashion’ in your approach and simultaneously selling millions of pounds of Rick Owens clothes every year?

RO: Weird, huh? I know that I love fashion and admire energetic creativity but if I were going to buy clothes, I'd probably be loyal to someone who has a solid consistent vision, like Margiela or Hermes. Too many exciting twists and turns in a designers output is wonderful to see, but a bit frivolous for me to commit to. I would never in a million years compare myself to Mr Margiela or Hermes, but I'm very attracted to their example. Maybe I'm attracting customers like myself.

DD: Another disparity is that you sell basics like T-shirts and vests but at the same time you sell sculpturally fantastic clothes that are seen as being quite difficult to wear.

RO: I have a simple long silhouette that I started out with and still sell those same pieces the most since day one of my business. These are my foundations. But each season allows me to experiment with some new proportions to refresh my foundation. I can't very well propose the same thing no matter how satisfied I am with it. So if I'm gonna propose something new, it's gonna be a moment of a little madness.

DD: How do you feel about being labelled as the leader of 'American avant-garde fashion’? Do you feel you have any other compatriots who design like you do?

RO: I'm sure there are, but it's easy for anything unusual to be marginalised in American fashion. In Paris, risk taking is practically enforced.

DD: How are preparations going for the spring/summer 2009 collection?

RO: As time goes on, I've learn from past mistakes to be ready earlier and earlier. I don't relish last minute drama. So now, for better or worse, I feel like I've found my rhythm.

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Damn, this is sort a noob question but.

I just bought a R.O. tee in dust, I was hoping it was going to be this color

owens.jpg

But it is more like a dark shadow color like this Damir shirt

Do the colors vary by season? Also I grabbed an XS I am 5 10 and the sleeves are down to my elbows. Do I throw it in the dryer?

img3651.jpg

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the colour in the first picture looks quite a bit more slate then Dust usually is, the Damir tee is actually closer to what it often looks like.

but as said, it varies by season and by garment. on leathers, it tends to be more olive/slate, on some tees more beige, on others more olive, grey, lighter, darker etc...

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Can somebody post or PM me editorial/runway pictures of the crazy muscle thing dismal just bought?

He's steezy as hell, but that's something i'm just :o about.

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Guest Boras

I bought a leather pants ro there is several months ago :

p1000672n.jpg

but have you an idea about the season or links where i can see them worn?

I think they are potentialfull but need advices :/

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