March 6, 2026 |
Rick Owens is one of the most compassionate people in fashion. His work is always seeking to connect with humanity and reflect upon the human experience. It’s what gives it such resonance.
Reflecting on the state of the world, Owens took the title of his show, Tower, from a prayer dedicated to love and hope (‘Temple of love, tower of light’) and created towering looks as beacons of humanity.
The opening looks towered: long sheaths crafted from leather, boiled wool and Kevlar, the protective fibre that’s five times stronger than steel and is used for bullet proof vests. Owens’ use of such a material was no accident. It was a direct response to the violence and war in the world. “I was thinking about rising to the occasion; I was thinking that how you respond to threat defines character,” he said.
What does resistance look like? Fierce, unapologetic glamour. Resistance is striding out on pointed platforms, swathed in a quilted capelet; it’s a quilted ceremonial-style, high funnel collar framing your face. It’s leather running shorts with an architectural swoop of leather at the waist, worn with a cropped matching blouson around the hips. It’s dreadlocked woolly mammoth jackets with linebacker shoulders, and the monster proportions of shaggy, goat chubbies and capes. It chimes, he says, with the times. “Throughout history, when you’re living on the edge of disaster, people have reacted with extravagance and maybe a little bit of depravity,” he said, adding, “There is this gritty frivolity to it that I really love.”
Photography courtesy of Rick Owens.
