Rick Owens -- Shades of an Amiable Apocalypse
By Karl Treacy
(Photos by Gruber-FWD)
PARIS, Mar 6, 2003/ FWD/ --- American designer Rick Owens, showing in Paris for the first time, brought his trademark distressed leather look to the capital of couture in a characteristically bleak show that shone with subtle genius.
As the models trooped out alone or in clusters, they seemed to carry a foreboding portent with them -- a tough message, especially in times like these.
But Owens left any concessions of doom and gloom behind with the subtle complexity of his clothes. Even when a boiled wool coat came lined with glossy mink, it was apparent that these are clothes never destined for the wardrobe of a society matron. You have to be cool enough to wear them and be able to enjoy luxuriating in the details.
Owens’ strength showed in how he introduced such tones as duck-egg blue, dusty pinks, beige, cream and dove grays into the mix. An inventive use of juxtaposed textures - from scrunched up washed leather to fleece, via wrinkled satin lining, and multiple knit stitches on the same garment - made even boring black adopt different tones.
The looks were signature Owens -- playing with proportions and layering and cutting jersey haphazardly to twist around the body and jut off in a fishtail.
And though at times Owens' clothes seemed uncomfortably close to the work of Paris veteran Ann Demeulemeester - in the use of slouchy fabrics or straps crossing the torso and hanging low on the hips - it was his reinvention of leather that set him firmly apart. Coats and jackets had unfinished edges as well, from which escaped clumps of knotted and matted sheep's wool. And to the strains of hard rock music, the models paced in burgundy brown flat leather boots that laced up the back or kept going up the leg as pants.
Sometimes an overtly cerebral cord was struck with a complicated blanket coat or with too much twisting and seaming. But luckily, a pink knitted sweater that slid off the shoulder and fell into a cowl drape at the back evoked a poignant moment of quieter beauty.
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