Rick Owens. Men's Fall 2020 - Paris Fashion Week

Images from the designer and the public domain. Credited to the photographer/company where applicable: Gorunway.com)

Rick Owens, in lieu of the more modernist and defined tailored looks that came out of 2019, Owens has continued on with his Fall 2020 Men's collection in representing the trend going into 2020, quoted from his latest exposé for Paris Fashion Week, that he wishes to remove some of the “clutter” filling the runways and/or world, shaping his Fall array into a more “sleeker” concept.  It is, in someways, hard to track Owens's contrarian aspects in regards to his creativity, reworking styles from his own backlog which he has already devised over the years, whilst playing around with pop culture and historic concepts within a past to present time-line.  Rick Owens collaborative book titled “Legaspi: Larry Legaspi, the 70s, and the Future of Fashion” , to which Owens is still paying homage to the late Legaspi stature as a costume designer, including the promotion of his biographical book that has just been released.  After five seasonal shows, in respect of the publication, the recurring themes of Owens's take on Legaspi's influenced stylizations have become an overfrequency.  

Surprisingly after Owens Spring 2020 showing, which focused on a blunt masculine appeal, while sourcing from the costume designs ala Legaspi's concept ideas, for his Fall 2020 collection as a gender fluid set piece refocusing females styles onto the male models, for at least the first half of the collection.  Although, it is very similar to Owens's Fall 2019 (Women's) Read-To-Wear styles of March last year.  So once again, it is hard to track Owens's temperament, but if there is a pattern emerging, it could be of a possible stagnation. Which is understandable, designing for every single season would be a difficult process for any fashion designer, particularly in representing runway shows and Owens for the most part has risen to the challenge.  

The Fall 2020 array is certainly sleeker and more minimalist than previous showings.  I suspect and this is a guess, that the show was to be mixed with male and female models, which may have been altered as a last minute idea to have an all male showing – of course this is a men's collection and the fits would have been set onto the male models.  However the 'fluid' styles after 25 pieces on the display return to a male perspective, the momentum looks slightly misplaced on the runway. As the second half holds more attention to the coats and jackets with larger than life shoulder pads, the running theme is the platform heeled boots (as seen with the previous season showings) on all of the models.  The color palette represents the modernist cues and as mention is the main trend of 2020, that in lock step, with what could be defined, as the fashionable blowsy “thrift' shop” styles.  Unfortunately Owens latest collection doesn't offer a paradoxical dynamic of the two merging styles, instead it feels, maybe without intention, conservatively rigid.