Rick Owens. Spring 2019 – Paris Fashion Week

(Images from vogue.com and wwd.com and the public domain. All rights. Used in promotion of the designer.)

Rick Owens could possibly be one of the last major independent Avant-garde designers remaining, who from the 1990s onward laid down the looks that defined these modern neo-gothic styles. Asymmetrical cuts, crotch drop pants, draped linen coats.  Frayed, de-constructed, worn leather looks set in the achromatic black and white.  Artisan styles, that, within culture booms (meaning easy and accessible credit) clothing companies would hone in on what they might have thought was indifferent to mainstream fashion.  Except, it wasn't.  Crafting looks under the umbrella of risqué, rather it became a statement of luxury in fleeting moments, to be defined as something that once felt unique. 

Owens has decreed a nihilistic slant to his Spring 2019 collection.  In the times we are living in now, with global markets still in a feverish, yet unstable, boom mode, the so called culture wars are a byproduct of excess.  The average person, trying to survive, isn't interested in the polarized arguments via digital networks.  An insidious play, as both sides of politics have galvanized the poor into popularization - creating scapegoats to blame.  And it has happen before in history, all the while everybody is slightly asleep at the wheel.  

Are we entering a dangerous phase of our existence?  No, just excessiveness, bloated expectations of a Utopian digitalized wonderland.  As the piece of the pie is getting smaller and smaller.  At some point, the reality check is that all you need is right here and nothing else matters.  You make it out of all this and enjoy the day.  Because there may not be a tomorrow.    Owens using a pyre as a simplistic structure to burn away the past is very poignant.  Because it's true.  There is no system, political or otherwise that will save us.  The right are clutching (under a theocratic banner) at what they believe is the steadfast rigid work ethic, and a society that honors families values, we are ensured if we follow this route our society will be productive and strong.  Of course that is a myth.  The left, induced fantasy of a Utopian world, expansive governments piling up debts, whilst a select academic few allow the rest to experiment with excess (as long as it inspires equality sans meritocracy).  To follow and acknowledge the aspirations of the silicon valley kingpins, in their initiated (marketed) brave new world where everybody is a winner.  Yeah, Rick light it up.  Let it burn.

Owens's contemporary "witches" parading around the burning structure.   Wearing, in various forms, architecturally manifested frames with futuristic styled sunglasses.  Maybe a symbolism to design that could transcend humanity. What will outlast?  Our buildings?  Or us over time?   His Spring 2019 collection holds a cultism appeal, which I like a lot.  A new underground that represents an ambiguous movement.  Interesting concepts of models fusing human form onto new structures.  This has been experimented with in fiction, more so science fiction - a dystopian connection to a broken world.  As it becomes real. Tangible.  Reconfiguring and reshaping aspects of reality to make it more palatable.  To become gods within our cities.  To survive.  Linen inlays and free flowing styles, denim and symmetrically cut leather coats and jackets.  Tassels (big fan), military inspired utility belts and bags.  Seen from Owens's 2017 shows.  A fierce, determined and sexy collection from Rick Owens.

I say, rise from the ashes, witches of the dystopia.