Rick Owens Fall 2019 RTW – Paris Fashion Week

(Images from Vogue.com and wwd.com. The public domain. Used in promotion of the designer.)

Rick Owens has proved himself to not only draw from the past for influences, but rework, redesign and reconfigure the stylizations of history, whether they be sourced from the dark, light, negative and positive of the human condition. Transforming into a sharpened perspective of his own calibration.  That's what makes an artist create art. Which is actually quite rare. In era where readily available information via digitalized networks is skipped over for quick fix narcissism and 'micro emperors' trying to gain traction within a world gripped by a self perpetuation of fears. The shoehorn of politics and cultural discourse is so prolifically obvious – it has now become a parody of reality.  A simulation.  But, time is reality and it passes with a brutal disregard to biology, within its indifference to the fraught human condition - despite the need to express its insignificance in the cosmos. Humanity's voice is essentially void inside a cold Universe, it is all alone and collectively, we're frightened.

Fear has to be challenged to offset the embrace and safety of a middle class, that is all but an illusion, despite its appeal – it is quite possibly  the tale-tell signs of a society, of its widespread feigned entreaty, that has reached a plateau.  In everything.  Yet, the insidiousness aspect of a fearful world is that it tries to find scapegoats.  As we move further into the 21st century.  We should be questioning normalcy rather than trying to appease, conjoin and justify its presence.  That is true rebelling and is is solely an individual dynamic.  And has mentioned it has become a very rare phenomenon these days, with the past offering some beautiful examples.

For Rick Owens Fall 2019 Ready-to-Wear collection, he remains fixed on the Glam and futurist idealism (as an influences) of the late costume designer Larry LeGaspi, who was famed for designing the KISS ensembles, it was a mainstream shock into a middle class reality over forty years ago.  Which was embraced with fervor at that time.  But, polishing over a rebellious hero such as LeGaspi would be distracting in its prescient of Ownes's own take on rebellion throughout his career as a fashion designer.  Which has been purely a unique experience, particularly as a fashion writer like myself to witness. 

The collection plays like a tuned-out sex array of fusions past to present.  No future.  It is tantalizing in shape and form, with the female models, now stripping back to layered aspects of Owens's trademark styles of cotton wrap around tops, accentuated shoulder pads and blazers and coats, the stalwart trend of 2018 now solidified into 2019.  There is the heeled, glam inspired boots, suede and platformed into art deco styles.  Intoxicating and decadently focused, enough to initate originality.  There are a plenty of the Grace Jones skimpy (once again LeGaspi inspired) arrays.  Sexually in your face, but subtle at the same time. Thrilling and challenging for the viewer, uplifting and powerful, yet aware of time.  The collection doesn't drift too far back into years that have gone which includes the many who have passed on.  Body modification makeup, that falls under my term of Xenostructuralism. 

Everything has sex appeal – and Owens's Fall 2019 collection is dripping with it.