As a metaphor for climate catastrophe, Rick Owens’ spring men’s show hit home hard.
Attending fashion week in Paris amid a heatwave has proven something of an endurance sport, given France’s aversion to air conditioning — and designers’ penchant for outdoor venues.
Owens returned to the reflecting pool at the Palais de Tokyo, where guests lingered in the shade as long as possible, clamoring for umbrellas and chilled water before they finally plunked their bottoms on the black benches that had been baking in the morning sun.
A new collaboration with Adidas was the headline news at the show, and athleticism a main theme, from the three-stripe sweatpants slung low on the sinewy hips of model Tyrone Dylan to the inflatable windbreakers with Climacool technology meant to reduce a runner’s core temperature as much as possible before a marathon.
“Performance under pressure,” the designer told WWD.
As a fashion show, it was sometimes difficult to watch as the pin-thin models, some smothered under long black polyester capes or wearing cage-like pants of rigid rubber tubes, negotiated multiple staircases and then a slanted metal ramp over the water, trying hard not to fall from their Frankenstein boots — or succumb to the heat.
Rick Owens’ shows often have a dystopian undercurrent and an overarching melancholia, but this one felt like it was happening in real time.
At least one model whisked by easily in Owens’ first high-performance running shoe for Adidas, which comes out next year and has an angular shape. It looks super cool.
As did much of the collection, which stretched from second-skin T-shirts with a zipper up the spine to Owens’ unmistakable strong-shouldered coats, which he wears no matter the temperature, along with those platform leather boots.
“I like living a stylized life, and I like living a little bit of a formal life,” he mused before the show.
His one concession to the summer heat? “At home in my studio, I’ll just take off my shoes,” he said.
The show heaved with covetable outerwear, from a trim, industrial-tinged safari jacket to more iterations of Owens’ hit Dracu-collar blousons. Vaguely military coats and jackets came with removable epaulettes, which Owens characterized as a symbol of authority and trust, worn by airline pilots and cruise-boat captains.
A cool breeze can’t come soon enough.
