The invitation for Rick Owens’ latest menswear show – at Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2024 – was a loop of jersey fabric, stitched with ‘Porterville’, the collection’s title. It is also the name of the town in which a young Owens grew up, located at the base of California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range. He has credited its vast landscapes for his love of the monumental – as well as being a site of teenage angst and yearning – all elements that continue to pulsate through the designer’s work. ‘I remember the small brutalities of a sensitive childhood in a judgemental country,’ he wrote in a letter released just before the show’s start.
Homecoming: Rick Owens A/W 2024 show
The show’s location – with guests sworn to secrecy in the run-up – was Owens’ current home on Paris’ Place du Palais Bourbon, which he purchased alongside his wife, Michèle Lamy in 2014. Formerly the headquarters of the French Socialist party, he calls it his ‘concrete palace’ and ‘working compound’, where he began selling his collections over two decades ago. Inside, the largely concrete space is populated by sparse, brutalist furnishings reminiscent of the designer’s oeuvre. Other rooms contain the building's historic cornices and mouldings (albeit stripped back to their essence). This morning, guests filtered through these various rooms, taking places on furniture erected around their edges, winter sunlight streaming through the windows and skylights.
It made for a stark departure from Owens’ usual presentations, which take place each season at the vast Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and often on its monumental deco forecourt (last season, the models walked under enormous puffs of coloured smoke). The designer said that the shift came in part as a response to the ‘barbaric times through which we are living’ (recent seasons have seen Owens struggling with creating collections against the backdrop of war), describing the move from spectacle to intimacy as a kind of ‘respectful restraint’.
Indeed, the collection itself had a feeling of intimacy. Vast, shaggy forms wrapped around the body – a warped vision of comfort – while Owens’ architectural puffer jackets were raised high on the neckline as if to suggest protection. Elsewhere, a feeling of softness was echoed in all-in-one ‘space suits’ knitted from soft recycled cashmere, alpaca and merino. Some were worn pulled down to the waist with shimmering tangles of sequins in beautiful branch-like structures, both strange and delicate. Other looks took a darker form, with garments dwarfing the body or crafted from recycled motorcycle tyres by Matisse Di Maggio, a rubber-wear specialist from Paris.
‘Collection proportions are grotesque and inhuman in a howling reaction to some of the most disappointing human behaviour we will witness in our lifetime,’ said Owens in his description of the collection. ‘There is the eternal utopian hope of someplace better.’
To populate this utopia, Owens established a cast of collaborators which he sees as embodying a new way of living – ‘creatives who live their aesthetic defiantly and completely’. These included Steven from Fecal Matter and Gena Marvin, both known for their dramatic, otherworldly looks (a ‘cheerful depravity’ describes Owens). Both walked the runway, while London-based designer Straytukay worked with the designer on the distinctive inflatable boots that appeared throughout the show. Owens also recreated a DIY version of his signature ‘Kiss’ boot by designer Leo Prothman, which he had discovered while scrolling social media.
It made for a show about connection and community, about finding solace amid the churn of the world. Because what better feeling of protection is there than coming home?
