Rick Owens. Fall 2022 – Paris

 Rick Owens Lido, Venice beach shows maybe in the shadow of the 2020 and 2021 pandemic, where he and his wife Michèle Lamy spent the good part of the viral outbreak away from their Parisian home on the beaches of Lido.  Returning to Paris for 2022 fashion weeks, this tumultuous period in human history is still upon us, which has further defined Owens creative direction.  No stranger to his personal doomsday manifestations that is of his own signature aesthetics, Owens has been able to maintain his styles within the dichotomy of light and darkness, stark metaphors which reflect and absorb energy and within their essence are indicative of both life and death. Owens ability to crisscross his influences over the last decade by showcasing 1970s hedonistic glamor and 1980s excess, fused with the overconfidence and hyper-reality of digital media; has proven, that this once Los Angeles resident to be one of the last independent luxury designers left.  Skillfully expanding his uncompromisable template over the twenty years of the Rick Owens brand name, when he revealed his debut collection at New York Fashion week in 2002.  

However, Owens at times, does hold a contrarian attribute with his collections, which keeps his critics guessing, while at the same time offering a hint from one season to another of his said themes.  Which interestingly for his last collection, was portrayed as a liberated perspective inserted within the doom of the global pandemic, as noted with his Men’s Spring 2021 styles on a sunny Lido beach.  Owens has since upped the ante of his dark and aphotic esoterica with a refined gusto, which was predominately shown via his women’s collections throughout his self imposed ‘Death in Venice’ inspired lockdown in 2020 and 2021.   These demiurgic styles from the last two years, have now been mirrored with Owens latest men’s collection, as noted with the women’s collections, a Moira cultism.

Owens, who has just visited Egypt, has reincorporated the bunker-like cenotaph of his Palais de Tokyo past resonations, to set in place his Fall 2022 “STROBE” collection.   Holding the benchmark, of his oracle Trumpet of Doom stylizations, the darkness has certainly returned as the models walk down the spiral staircase into the stark foundations of the Palais de Tokyo, only to be illuminated by a strobe lighting effect within the carnivorous area.   The collection has a churlish, even sadomasochistic overtone to its impression, which is not unusual for Owens to represent in past runways shows.  Although with his latest array, holds a more militaristic and harsher look as opposed to his Spring 2022 styles.   The whole collection, despite the details presented, were shrouded in darkness except for the flash of the strobe lights, giving it a secretive and underground feel.  Is this Owens’s detachment from the fashion industry?  Or commentary of what it is to be, as an independent fashion designer surrounded by these all encroaching conglomerates, that for the most part are gobbling up smaller designer labels. 

Is creativity in fashion dying?

Owens’s oracles of the tumult that may indeed reply with another question:  “Are we at the end or the beginning?”