Who calls a collection “Walrus”, seriously? Rick Owens, that’s who. This spring/summer, rick was inspired by change – evolution, rather than revolution. His last collection was called “Mastodon”, the evolutionary ancestor of the walrus, you see. All very clever. What it meant in terms of clothes weren’t tusks or fuzzy pelt or even anyone getting wet, but clothes caught in half-motion, freely draped and sliding around the body. Owens himself referenced the couture of Madame Grès, a fabulous Frenchwoman known for her classically draped and pleated dresses that remained pretty much constant throughout her career, spanning six decades. She never really made clothes like Owens’ romping stomping wide-legged trousers and prehistoric-looking draped tops. But maybe this is an evolution on from Grès – or even a step before. The missing link? Only Rick Owens would show that as a fashion collection devoted to the aesthetic imprint a marine mammal made.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
