Rick Owens enlists Paris in a parade of all excesses

Paris - Rick Owens outdid himself on Thursday, mesmerizing hundreds of spectators with a monumental outdoor show featuring an army of eerie, proud silhouettes clad in his signature white monochrome.

Smoke cleared. A first battalion of hooded jumpsuits, space-age shoulders, descended the monumental stone steps of the Palais de Tokyo esplanade. These 12 silken boiler suits billowing in the wind stood on the designer’s signature platform boots, instantly transporting one to sci-fi and Hollywood.

The soundtrack booming out as far as the Eiffel Tower – Beethoven’s Symphony No.7, which has become one of cinema’s great anthems – helped complete the journey.

The spring/summer 2025 collection by Rick Owens, who has been based in Paris for decades, was called “Hollywood,” after the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” where the young designer found himself after fleeing his conservative small-town upbringing in California in the 1970s.

There were references to the silent movie era, with faces painted white, the eyes sinister, timeless, like in Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic “Metropolis.” Golden halos completed white denim looks, which fitted perfectly into this Art Deco 1920s Hollywood vibe. Leather biker jackets with hoods were worn over dresses designed to be worn by men or women, in white satin that fell like a veil.

Having shown his last two seasons to a select few in his Paris apartment, Owens explained in a statement that he wanted to invite “everybody” this time – students, young designers, friends from 25 years ago and figures from the trans community.

His team admitted that the small independent house, often feted for its edginess, had wanted to make a statement with this show. The climax, greeted with whoops of applause from the audience, was the arrival of a kind of raft carried by bearers, with female gymnasts forming the mast. It bore a pirate flag featuring a white hand clasping a black one.

“It’s all well and good to express our individuality, but sometimes it’s also good to express our unity and our need for each other… especially in the face of the explosion of intolerance we are experiencing in the world right now,” wrote Owens. (AFP)

This article originally appeared on FashionUnited.FR. Translation and edit by: Rachel Douglass.