Tyrone Dylan Susman opened this Rick Owens show in a one-legged, one-shouldered jumpsuit modeled after one made by Kansai Yamamoto for David Bowie in 1973. But where Yamamoto’s was a vivid pattern drawn from yakuza tattoos and kimonos, Owens’s was drably dun, and in the felty cashmere from which he crafted it was—on purpose—blankety. That connected the collection to another great Owens influence, the artist Joseph Beuys, whose origin story (it really was a story, a ripping yarn since debunked) and work was wrapped up in blankets.
John Berger once wrote of Beuys something that applies to Owens: “He took objects and arranged them in such a way that they beg the spectator to collaborate with them…by listening to what their eyes tell them and remembering.” On a more elevated level the rearranged objects in this collection that begged via the eye for collaboration and remembrance were many: the “monstrous” shoulders near the end; the huge steel-fronted platforms; and of course—I mean, just use your eyes—the bodies of his models.
Owens talked about “graphics of exposed flesh” carved by his cut-out cashmere layers, and alongside those were the graphics of silhouette. Also graphic, and way less elevated (in fact exactly halfway down) was the bushy tuft of human male yarn unseen on an Owens runway since fall 2015 that curled southwards from one blue cashmere jumpsuit. Where there was not such (albeit accidental) full exposure, there was the implication of translucency in the semi-transparent seamless vinyl coats and shorts, an almost violence of color on shearlings and moto-pants, screaming striped prints of oversize python, and hints of cleavage delivered via the deep-V tees so recently beloved of ripped Rick himself.
Which led us back to the author of it all. “I was a lot more introspective 10 years ago. And, you know, I think as you get older, you just get a little more reckless, more comfortable, more confident, more playful.” He noted also a tendency to get cranky, but added: “I'm here, you know. You’re invited to the party, bring something. And that’s what I’m trying to do.” And he did.
He added: “The most reassuring thing you can do as far as fashion is concerned, I think, is to streamline it. I’m looking at the graphics of exposed flesh. And, I’m going through my own exposed flesh moment, which I wouldn’t have done a while ago.”
Ah yes! Those cleavage tees! His wife Michèle Lamy’s insta-vid of Rick topless in bed! What has led to this recent rush of Rick revelation? “It’s just a grim determination to make the best of what you’ve got. Which I think is the most moral thing anybody can do.” Just like Bowie (the striped looks were très Yamamoto also) and just like Beuys, this collection was both provocation and stimulation for the eye. From where I was sitting, morality didn’t really come into it.
