Dear Shaded Viewers,
In a deeply personal gesture, Rick Owens welcomes guests into the very home where his fashion journey began 25 years ago, hosting both his men’s and women’s shows. Amidst these challenging times, this intimate decision resonates with the judgmental hostility of Owens’ upbringing in ‘Porterville.’ Growing up without a TV but immersed in opera and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ narratives, Owens envisioned a universe reminiscent of Frank Frazetta’s illustrations – a space marked by yearning, rapture, and peculiar nobility. His early influences, mirroring the spirit of Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger,” fueled a strong desire to break free from his childhood reality, shaping his current artistic vision.
“Our collection features weird yet noble spacesuits, crafted from recycled cashmere or felted alpaca, swathed in matching hooded robes or turbo-ply knit ponchos. Knit tops knot and bundle around the upper torso, while leather duvet stretch pull-on boots anchor the lower leg, echoing our previous men’s show collaboration with Straytukay.
Jackets, shrouds, and siren skirts are made from recycled discarded bicycle tires by Matisse Di Maggio, a member of the Parisian BDSM community specializing in rubber. Capes and mantles are cut from heavy and compact loden felt, woven with coarse Austrian wool and felted using purified glacier melt water from the Dachstein Glacier in the Austrian Alps.
Shaggy coats and donut stoles are created from heavyweight felt made with the longest alpaca fibers on a silk warp, washed, felted, and brushed out. Our 13oz Japanese denim undergoes a treatment with layers of wax and foil, pressed, washed, and tumbled to achieve the final cracked and peeled megacrust look. All our denims are treated in an Italian wash-house in Veneto, using smaller treatment baths to reduce water waste, and a water purifying process that enables water recycling. All denim washes are ZDHC certified.
Tunics and cargo boots are made from 1.5mm thick veg-tanned and washed calf leather, finished using only natural waxes. Veg tanning involves using only vegetal and natural tannins in the tanning process.
Cropped duvet pod jackets are either made in Marlene Dietrich charmeuse or heavyweight merino shearlings tanned in Tuscany by a second-generation family-owned and LWG certified tannery. LWG certification ensures traceability of raw materials, high environmental standards, and efficient use of energy and water consumption in the tanning process.
Brutalist shapes from our furniture collection are applied to sleek clutches in a futuristic palladium finish, matching orb necklaces and cuffs adorned with faceted hematite crystals made outside of Florence in Tuscany, Italy, with the stones cut outside of Venice.
I also invited photographer Kristina Nagel, Hannah from Fecal Matter, and Gena Marvin to walk our runway. Kristina has been lending her face in a series of self-portraits wearing my collection, capturing the weird elegance I continuously strive for. Hannah and Steven from Fecal Matter have long been committed to balancing condemning judgment with their cheerful and exquisite depravity – something I try to achieve in my own small way. Gena’s often dangerous commitment to her aesthetic in her native Russia is documented in a beautiful documentary by filmmaker Agniia Galdanova.
The music, a synthesized version of ‘Pavane for a Dead Princess’ by Ravel, which my father often played in our house, sounds like an eerie, elegant, and benevolent world far away from Porterville.”
Rick Owens
