Rick Owens. Spring 2024 - PAris Fashion Week.
When I was in high school, I had an eye test and it was discussed that I am colorblind. And I remember the person who assigned the test for me, said that I wouldn't be able to become an electrician. I thought to myself at the time, Who wants to be an electrician? Anyway, I dismissed the diagnoses as nothing. And in 2021, I had another eye examination and recent color blind test, to which it was reiterated to me again, that I am indeed colorblind. And it makes sense, as I do see most colours as a dull shade, the green grass looks dulled and the blue sky seems washed out. Hence why, in my art, hues are exaggerated and so are the details, which I adore. Better still, it was discovering that colours, for the non-colour blind, can wash out intricacies, and I remember five years ago, after several drinks, sitting on the grass of a local park, walking off and realizing that I had left my home keys on that grassy spot. Suffice to say, the keys were found by me, because they stood out, amongst the dull greenery.
So, where am I going with all this insight into my so-called visual 'flaw'. Well, Rick Owens Spring 2024 collection has very much fallen within a spectrum of hues. While predominantly mixed with his trademark black inclinations, which is not actually a colour as it can exist without light, black naturally can tone down colors. And Owens has always utilized the achromatized as a template for his stylizations, representing its sleek, intricate and defined expression throughout his stark landscape.
I have been reviewing Owens collections for over a decade, and in 2020, I was able to write for a London fashion magazine in a retrospective article of his earlier years as a fashion designer in Los Angeles, before venturing onto Paris with his wife Michèle Lamy in 2003. Owens no doubt holds a mystique, with his enigmatic persona, and in a relentless way he has not missed a single Paris Fashion Week show since his relocation from L.A. Holding most of his runway presentations at Owens's beloved Palais de Tokyo, which has been that stalwart backdrop for most of his seasonal collections. Yet, I have also observed a contrarian sentiment from the designer, which does not always correlate with his showings. This could be seen with his latest array, explaining to the press that he felt less "doomy" offering a "positive" Fall collection. I guess, it is up to the observer to decide and Owens Fall 2024 collection, to me, remains deeply fixed within his Oracles of Doom, which evolved out of the 2020 and 2021 non-crowd pandemic days on Lido beach in Venice. And ironically, Owens Fall 2024 collection has been titled "Lido".
The Fall 2024 collection, with its smoke machine billowing out a purple haze, now a constant fixture for Owens's runway shows, highlights, although not domineering over his signature black and grays, those red and orange hues. One maybe hard pressed to see a lighter side or so called positive reflection from his latest collection and Owens's doom doesn't seem to have been toned down, sans the scattered flower petals, that in estorica actually mean the end. And as noted from recent showings, the stygian void contact lenses have remained, as have the Sybil orcales. Seen, as wraith like and veiled spectras, moving out of the lilac haze, representing the defiant necromancer.
And she did warn us not to be too overconfident. It always comes in threes.
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(A.Glass 2023)
RICK OWENS THE EARLY YEARS 1994-2002: FROM HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD TO NEW YORK FASHION WEEK. (A.Glass 2020)
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