Rick Owens knows he has a reputation. It'd be pretty tough to earn the nickname "the dark lord of fashion" without being aware of it. His eponymous label's signature aesthetic—dark and drapey, punctuated with elements like gargoyle-ish spiked shoulders, towering heels for men and women alike, and shocks of bold colour—has earned scores of devoted followers the world over. But, Owens says, "it can seem that the Rick Owens world is just too extreme, or it can seem forbidding. I didn't want that to happen." In fact, if you ask him what he wants to foster with his work, he'll tell you it's "inclusivity." A dark lord he may seem, but far kinder and more open than you might expect.
"I just want to be the guy who says, 'We have other options,'" he explains, referring to the dominant aesthetics of modern fashion. "Which I feel is more expansive and generous." It's all about bringing people into the fold, and as part of that project, over the last few years Owens has started collaborating with more mainstream brands like Adidas, Veja, Converse, Birkenstock, and Dr. Martens.
I caught up with the Paris-based designer on Zoom on the occasion of the latest release from the latter, which includes a calf-height 1918 boot as well as a riff on the iconic 8-eyelet 1460 boot finished with Owens's pentagram-shaped lacing. We chatted about that project, of course, but it quickly turned into a conversation about how Owens sees society, and what he wants to bring to it. Read on for a glimpse into the Rick Owens world, courtesy of the man himself.
On Collaboration
After years of being a very isolated, reclusive designer, I kind of felt like getting out of my little bubble. At worst, these kinds of collaborations can be hype machines, but at best they can actually be something that makes sense. I thought that Doc Martens makes sense for my personal interests and my personal history. Just the word "collaboration" is a positive one that I think that I'm in the mood to endorse now, whereas in the past I might have been threatened by it meaning something else.
And the other part is I do approve of communicating and becoming friends and reaching out. So that has been a way for me to reach out, and also to participate in the world around me a little bit more. It allows me to promote my agenda, but it also allows people in. Whereas before I might have seemed a little bit more remote and austere, I can use it as an invitation.
On 'The Airport Aesthetic'
I am lucky enough now that I have a platform where I get to promote personal agendas. And those agendas are empathy and promoting aesthetics that are alternative, because the aesthetic world, our contemporary aesthetic rules, can be so narrow. And if I can be somebody who can make other suggestions and can propose other options that might not be aesthetic or beauty clichés, that is the role that I would love to have in the world.
There is this saying that I started: "the airport aesthetic." Because when you go through an airport you are forced to march through this gauntlet of perfume ads and beauty ads and luxury ads that all have a very narrow focus. The sexual aspirations, the luxury aspirations, the status aspirations—all of that stuff, it makes me crazy. It's just so bigoted. Bigotry is about having a narrow set of rules, that are supposedly the only authentic rules. That's my interpretation.
And literally enforcing. I mean, we are forced to march through those ads. And maybe it's me being envious that my company isn't... Maybe I'd be super happy to have my perfume in one of those airport shops. I don't know yet, I'm not really sure. I haven't figured that out. Because yeah, coming from me it could sound like... What do they call it? Sour grapes. And I get that. But I think my feelings are authentic and sincere.
On Consistency
What I do, or what I try and do, is promote a set of values that doesn't change too much, that isn't fickle, and that is kind of steadfast. And I'm proud of that. I love that I'm that guy in the fashion world who isn't flipping everything over every collection or over-saturating each collection with so many ideas.
On His Reputation as 'Impenetrable'
I always wanted to promote inclusivity. But I ended up creating this thing that can seem impenetrable to people. It can seem that the Rick Owens world is just too extreme, or it can seem forbidding. I didn't want that to happen. And then I see online that there are gatekeepers, there are people saying, "You're too uncool to wear Rick Owens." And that's not me talking, that's gatekeepers. And so it's funny how something that wanted to be about inclusivity ended up being about exclusivity, having that element too. So it's a tricky thing. I mean, I seem unwelcoming, but I'm not.
On Dr. Martens
Doc Martins to me is very much from my young-adult past in Hollywood, Los Angeles, going to punk shows. So that's what I'm looking for. When they propose things to me, that's what Doc Marten's represents to me. It represents my youth, and who I wanted to be at the time, and who I thought I could be. There's a very personal, nostalgic connection to me and that's what made me want to do it.
On the Pace of Fashion
American Vogue offered to do my first runway show in New York, because they wanted to promote American designers. And it was a hard decision to make, because I thought that my aesthetic was so limited and so quiet that it would be hard for me to be able to sustain a career of doing runway shows. And once you commit to one runway show, you have to do them for the rest of your life. You just have to, or else you just have to quit.
So it was a hard decision to make because I thought, "I'm happy with what I do. And it's kind of a quiet thing." I had been selling clothes to stores personally for years before American Vogue found me. I would take my clothes to the back office of a boutique, or I would have an appointment and we would do a sale, and that's how I would do it. But when they offered me that, I thought, "How can you turn this down? And I'm 40, so fuck it, I'll try it." So I did.
And I stumbled a couple of times, because I thought that I needed to change faster, to refresh myself; I thought the glare of a runway show is going to burn out my little aesthetic really, really fast. But then I learned how to pace myself. Somewhere along the line I learned how to look at subtleties and shift them, so that there was motion and momentum and progress at a pace that fit into my world. And that's one of the things I'm the proudest of. At some point, everybody in the fashion world decided to tolerate my pace.
On Flipping the Rick Owens Look
On my team I think there could be a certain look that we've all established over a long period of time. And then when I see someone on my team breaking that, that's where it's always a fun surprise, because it's so easy to fall into a Rick Owens uniform in my world. And then when people on my team break from that and they twist it, that's always a delight.
And it's a delight just because I know what it took for them to do that. Whereas somebody out in the street, I don't understand what their aesthetic journey was; they're fully formed to me. I see the story and it's great, whatever it is. I'm happy to see them responding to anything that I've put out there.
