Excerpt: Rick Owens Mens Fall 2025

"Rick Owens has spent just over 21 years working between Paris and his factory in Concordia sulla Secchia, near Modena, Northern Italy, when he and his wife Michèle Lamy relocated to Paris from Los Angeles in 2003.  Solidifying himself, via the Owenscorp banner, which may or maynot have an irony attached to it, that Owens very much is the last, or in fact could be the very last, of the independent fashion designers still standing.   More so that Avant-garde, neon-gothic, drapey, industrial looking, dystopic and exclusive deconstructed styles of the early 2000s, that came to an abrupt end in 2018.  Which probably had a lot to do with a many brands pricing themselves out, yes allow irony to weave its imprint here, in a post climate change, tumultuous, dystopia style society, that is well and truly forming before our eyes. 

I have been reviewing Rick Owens collections since 2012, and was able to write a retrospective in 2020 for a U.K. fashion magazine of Owens shrewd beginnings of his signature label which originated in L.A. in 1994, concluding with his first New York runway show in 2002.  With Owens a year later, reinventing himself, after his relocation to Paris, while setting up his factory in Concordia, Italy.  Which has been an ongoing observation of Owens, to this day.

And it has to be noted, there are at times a paradoxical contrarian sentiment to Owens stylizations, apart from maintaining the dark, gothic and doomsdayish ethos, there seems to an insertion of contradiction, or at least an out-of-place overlay, be it from the show notes and press for the runaway shows, that doesn't always seem to reflect Owens's own stygian reflection, as an overture of oblivion..."

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(A.Glass 2025)

Full review:  chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/01/rick-owens-mens-fall-2025-paris-fashion.html

Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear review soon.