Rick Owens' previous menswear show took place at his Parisian home on the Place du Palais Bourbon (the former office of Francois Mitterand's Socialist Party). The space was conceived as a sanctuary and a haven for anti-intolerance, but it was limited, preventing the designer from inviting as many people as he wanted.
"I felt bad about making attendance so restricted," Owens announced in his show notes. "So this time around I wanted to welcome everyone. I asked all the fashion schools in Paris to send us students and faculty, men or women, who would like to walk in this white satin army of love."
Yesterday, the "white satin army of love" descended upon Paris, instantly turning the event into the show of the season.
Owens presented 10 looks, worn by groups of 20 people walking in blocks of four models per five rows, totaling 200 models. The lineup mainly included ordinary people, with a few Owens regulars like Tyrone Dylan Susman in a billowing see-through cape, and guest stars à la Allanah Starr.
Clad in white and ivory with some silvery accents, some models donned long or short capes, others wore metallic ones with hoods or sported more functional funnel-neck biker jackets and delicate silk gazar jumpsuits.
The designs were primarily paired with Owens' signature plexiglass-heeled footwear and with last season's Straytukay inflated boots (deflated in this case), along with Owens' pseudo-orthopedic boots; all-white Geobasket sneakers also made an appearance.
Despite the elongated silhouettes and the jackets' peaked or wide shoulders (reminiscent of sci-fi looks in William Cameron Menzies's "Things to Come"), the phalanx configurations marching over the parvis of the Palais de Tokyo were less threatening than one might expect.
This wasn't an alien invasion or a war declaration with troops ready to fight indeed, but it was more similar to a procession of humanity or maybe of celestial beings, in all shapes and sizes.
The music – Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major Op. 92: II, Allegretto, a very famous track, often chosen to punctuate key film scenes – strengthened this impression.
In 1941, writing to a friend, Pasolini stated that, for him, Beethoven's symphonies resonated with meaning: "...the pain, the problem, the longing (call it what you will) of Beethoven's soul is expressed in music, and the music makes that pain, that problem, that longing resonate within you."
This particularly powerful track is memorable for its layers of instrumentation that build a sound tapestry, narrating a story of struggle, adversity, progress and triumph, hinting at the possibility of a blissful peace.
The processional, inexorable and anguished rhythm of the Allegretto, is a relatively simple harmony with a repetitive nature (connecting it to the repetitive beats favored by modern DJs), but it is also heartbreaking and enchanting.
Many consider the Allegretto the greatest piece of music in the Western canon; composer Richard Wagner even elevated it to divine status.
Owens must have read what Pasolini and other music critics and experts stated about the Allegretto before choosing it, as the music played a pivotal role in giving the runway a hieratic mood.
This was emphasized by the metal structure carried by a group of athletic models, on which gymnasts stood, one carrying a flag with a print of two people holding hands. The structure called to mind statues in religious processions (did Owens ever see any Good Friday procession in Italy where moving live music accompanies the scenes recounting the passion of Christ?), but also the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games (starting in Paris in July), with athletes carrying flags.
The show also had a cinematic quality reminiscent of Cecil B. DeMille, as the number of people on the runway evoked crowd scenes in DeMille's films.
This was Hollywood rather than Porterville, as the designer highlighted, a reference to the people he met and hung around with in Los Angeles, but also to his admiration for Busby Berkeley’s perfectly choreographed scenes and religious epics or swords-and-sandals movies, from DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" (View this photo) to "Cleopatra", with some vague moods evoking "Lot in Sodom", James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber's expressionistic version of the Biblical story about Sodom and Gomorrah shot in 1933 (that was also echoed in Rick Owens' previous creations, in particular in his S/S 09 collection).
Owens surprised also because, rather than opting for Madame Satan's black, a color that would have reflected his gothic mood (but that would have turned the solemn runway into a mourning procession), he opted for white with some metallic accents that maybe hinted at Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra (View this photo), a reference evoked in the golden headdress worn by one of the groups of models (by Parisian stylist and hat-maker Corinne Lucquiaud).
Despite the connection with Berkeley's crowd scenes, Owens didn't opt for a "quantity vs. quality" approach, though, as there were just 10 designs to see.
The idea was indeed to get just a few designs to focus on the actual clothes and on humanity as well.
Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton tackled the same theme, humanity, but from a more commercial point of view; in this case, instead, humanity was also a way to highlight the collaborative effort behind the collection that also included wrapped knit shirts designed by Tanja Vidic for the litter-bearers and silk charmeuse robes from Fina, designed by Owens' collaborator Dafne Balatsos, while choreographer and artist Ylva Falk worked on the gymnasts' poses.
Kudos to Owens for the fashion school-issued open casting, allowing students to experience a fashion show as protagonists rather than interns.
This approach also offered Owens the opportunity to dress different body types, creating 10 looks that suited people of all shapes, sizes, genders, and ages in the show, and to play with the individual vs. collective dichotomy.
Indeed, in his notes, Owens wrote, "Expressing our individuality is great but sometimes expressing our unity and reliance on each other is a good thing to remember too… especially in the face of the peak intolerance we are experiencing in the world right now." (difficult not to detect a reference in his words to the rise of the far-right in France at the recent European elections and at the elections in France that will take place at the end of the month).
While the show was moving, it wasn't tear-inducing, however it definitely made you ponder about humanity and the role of fashion in our lives. Maybe it also proved that fashion shows are no longer just about selling a collection, but they are more about organizing a grand spectacle to instill catharsis in the viewer, much like Greek tragedy, or comment about the times we are living in.
In a way, there's no point in showing too many clothes and accessories on the runways, as you will see them in the showrooms and then in the shops. For now, Rick Owens seemed to tell us, you simply immerse yourself in the experience, hoping to walk away not just entertained, but deeply touched and transformed, carrying a renewed sense of purpose and connection to the world.
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