Rick Owens

Richard Saturnino Owens (born November 18, 1961), known as Rick Owens, is an American fashion designer from Porterville, California.

Early life and Education

Rick Owens was raised in Porterville, California. His parents are John (d. 2015) and Concepción "Connie" Owens. Connie is Mexican. Owens was raised in a conservative, Catholic household. After graduating high school, he moved to Los Angeles to study art at Otis College of Art and Design, in Los Angeles, for two years before taking pattern-making and draping courses at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. This led to work in the garment industry, designing copies of designer clothing.

Career

Owens launched his fashion line in 1994, operating out of a store in Hollywood Boulevard. He moved to Paris in 2003 with his companion and then wife Michèle Lamy, setting up his home and atelier inside a historic five-storey building that previously served as offices for former French President François Mitterrand. His runway collections have been mounted in Paris since then. In 2004, Owens and Michèle Lamy established their own fashion company Owenscorp, and described their business partnership as “asking a gypsy to organise a war with a fascist.”

In July 2005, Owens introduced a furniture collection. Using raw plywood, marble, alabaster, bronze, leather, and moose antlers, the collection is inspired by his favorite shapes from Eileen Gray to Brâncuși to California skate parks. The furniture collection has since been shown at the Musée d'Art modern in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Owens credits his wife, Michèle Lamy, as the creative force behind his furniture show. The exhibit showcases new works as well as classic pieces, in which some were envisioned for this newest store located in Soho, New York. The couple has worked together throughout the design process for his furniture line. Owens comes up with the drawings in which Lamy then creates the preliminary models for. Before his wife hires artisans to create the final pieces, the two carve, re-proportion, and make any adjustments beforehand. Owens leaves the installation process in Lamy's hands, who writes the summaries for the pieces as well.

In 2013, Owens exhibited his 'Prehistoric' collection at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in London. Owens' design colour palette in this seven piece collection stretches from white to black, stopping nowhere in between. "The show is entitled 'Prehistoric' – a name that reflects its inspiration, the origins of humanity, it recalls a mysterious ancient civilisation. Its aura is one of spiritual ritual, archaic ceremony and supreme power".

A recipient of the 2002 Perry Ellis Award for emerging talent and the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) in 2017, Owens was also awarded the Cooper-Hewitt Design Award for fashion design, as well as the Fashion Group International Rule Breaker Award in 2007. In June 2019, Owens won Menswear Designer of the Year Award at the 2019 Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Fashion Awards.

Owens has authored 3 books — L'ai-je bien descendu?, published in 2007, Rick Owens, published in 2011, and Rick Owens Furniture, followed by 2 books about Larry LeGaspi, which was published in November 2019 by publisher Rizolli.

He had launched five labels including Rick Owens, DRKSHDW, Rick Owens Lilies, Slab (Defunct), and Rick Owens Hun. His first museum exhibition and retrospective, chronicling over 20 years of his life's work, entitled, "Subhuman Inhuman Superhuman" opened at the Triennale di Milano in December 15, 2017. In 2018 and 2019, he has collaborated with Birkenstock and French sneaker brand Veja, respectively.

In 2019, Owens dedicated his fashion show to Larry LeGaspi, the man he considers his creative forefather. He introduced Gaspi in his fall and winter 2019 women’s runway collection, "For me, as a teenager growing up in Porterville, California, what Larry LeGaspi did was a huge thing—the way he infiltrated middle America with this subversive sensibility [...] [h]e connects with soul culture—black soul culture and music [...] [a]ll of this stuff coming together was very important to this kid in Porterville." And, "I do think of Larry’s as a kind of biblical story... about the glory of lust and vice, something I talk about a lot, but also about dissipation and decline—which I also talk about a lot... When I was 15, I wanted to be dissipated. And now I am, a little bit. But there is also responsibility." In November 2019, Owens returned to Los Angeles for the first time in 16 years to introduce the books.