Rick Owens. Spring/Summer 2027 Menswear - Paris Fashion Week.

 

We are all in a state of burnout exhaustion. Trumpist Fascism has been implanted globally, via an 80 year old megalomaniac, with his managed wars under corporatism banners, as an attempt to try and change the world via a digital interface, seen from the likes of techno-fascists Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Alex Karp as an autocratic, AI driven society, where the streets are clean and the electrical buses run on time.  And that technology will set you free ethos, has become more of an entrapment, with global protests against fascism, boxed into a Instagram data feed, algothmithically confined to its designated echo chamber, with the ire of emotionally driven masochism ever present.   

And of course, we all should have seen this coming, as much as Rick Owens oracles or "doomsday witches" over the last 5 years, during the COVID pandemic, had warned, that if the hyper suspicious, conspiracy theory driven Far Right gain traction socially and politically, they will re-elect a maniac, who is also a climate change denier.  And Europe is facing one of the worst heat waves on record, with over 1000 people have died by rising temperatures, and nuclear power plants have shut down.   All is not well, and doom is very much the order of the day.

Owens's Spring 2027 menswear collection, revealed at his beloved Palais de Tokyo in blistering heat, the 1930s Art Deco, monolith styled, Paris structure, showcased his doomish elements, but as you would expect, and seen from recent showings, those rigid, militancy styles ala bondage esque dominance.   Yet, the models, wearing Owens glam rock ala the late Larry LeGaspi's boots, walked down a sloped ramp, amidst the heatwave of Paris, dressed or over dressed in Owens's trademark black, are portrayed in an almost masochistic physical tilt, of self induced pain. In similarly to the emotionally machoism of doom scrolling Instagram, of protesters being assaulted and thrown around by Police.  So, it has to be asked.  Are we suckers to pain from frustration, looping doom it through a digital screen?

And after ten years, the Owens x Adidas collaboration has returned, and if you were lucky enough to have owned one of those pieces, and it has survived wear and tear, dry rot and still is intact, all the materialistic power to you.   So, the amount of Adidas Three Stripes are very much on display under the blazing sun, possibly a cologemetrate life-line to one of the last of the independent designers, still standing in an unforgiving industry. 

The Spring/Summer 2027 collection is not groundbreaking for Owens, however, the sadomasochism is definanaly onshow, and literally; latex clad, extrayer layers of heat absorbing black, and boots that had an upward tilt, as the 72 models, walked back up the angled ramp with no shade, and the radiant heat wave cooking up their already stressed nervous systems.

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(A.Glass 2026)