Rick Owens at Paris Fashion Week Men’s S/S 2019

Scene setting: The insta-age has carved two distinct fashion camps: those who want to be transported and those who want to follow. Our avant-garde, poetic saviour is Rick Owens. For summer his shows are hosted in the raw, open air at the Palais de Tokyo. They are epic, theatrical and intense with rigour, passion and sex. At his S/S 2018 show models walked on scaffolding set metres high above the space. Barely visible, they descended onto the industrial catwalk with demonic force. For S/S 2019 Owens’ boys circled potent eruptions of vivid coloured gas. First blue, then green, then red and yellow – the gas lingered like new thoughts in the brain.
Mood board: For this collection Owens explores the Tower of Babel – a biblical story which offers an explanation as to why the world’s people speak different languages. It is a myth about compassion and understanding and who doesn’t need a bit of that right now? The clothes are an allegory for our times. A scene from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis from 1927 interprets the Tower of Babel in a way that fits Owens’ mood. A flashback tells of how the lack of communication between the architects and the builders leads to the Tower’s ultimate destruction. No doubt this is why Owens’ clothes come with integrated scaffolding – triangular aluminium frames sit underneath jersey t-shirts, rearranging the silhouette of the body in the extreme. They contrast with relaxed washed denim skirts or denim cut-offs.
Team work: Owens encourages the eye to do more. The look is intense yet there are a lot of easy clothes: jean jackets cropped with sharp shoulder pads; sharp tailoring in summer wool or waxed linen with slim arms in sheer crisp silk gazar; hiking boots and sandals from the brand’s second season with Birkenstock. A series of hooded nylon ponchos closed the show. Shown assembled into constructivist shapes, they will be shipped flat to stores with a set of aluminium poles as, the show notes read, ‘a reminder of what could be.’
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
London based writer Dal Chodha is editor-in-chief of Archivist Addendum — a publishing project that explores the gap between fashion editorial and academe. He writes for various international titles and journals on fashion, art and culture and is a contributing editor at Wallpaper*. Chodha has been working in academic institutions for more than a decade and is Stage 1 Leader of the BA Fashion Communication and Promotion course at Central Saint Martins. In 2020 he published his first book SHOW NOTES, an original hybrid of journalism, poetry and provocation.
-
Meet Malak Mattar, the Palestinian artist behind the 'Together for Palestine' concert at London's Wembley Arena
The London-based artist curates a landmark concert of music and art in support of Gaza, alongside Brian Eno, James Blake, Jamie xx, Neneh Cherry and more
-
A new coffee table book proves that one designer’s trash is another’s treasure
The Rizzoli tome, launching today (16 September 2025), delves into the philosophy and process of Retrouvius, a design studio reclaiming salvaged materials in weird and wonderful ways
-
A carbon-emission-busting house, yeast-biomass building, and more ‘Designs for a Cooler Planet’
‘Designs for a Cooler Planet’ returns to Aalto University in Finland as part of the annual Helsinki design and architecture week, highlighting buildings, materials and solutions towards a better future
-
What the Wallpaper* editors are looking forward to at fashion week, from blockbuster debuts to rising stars
The Wallpaper* style team pick their highlights from the upcoming fashion month, a definitive season as the industry’s major players start their latest chapters, beginning in New York tomorrow
-
How Bureau Betak transformed the runway show: ‘Our currency is emotion and memory’
Pioneering production company Bureau Betak has masterminded some of the most inspiring runway sets of the last 30 years, dazzling both real-life guests and an ever-growing virtual global audience. Hugo Macdonald meets the people behind the magic
-
‘Never copy the past’: how Nicolas Di Felice is taking Courrèges into the future
At Courrèges, artistic director Nicolas Di Felice is marrying radical thinking, raving and reinterpreted minimalist codes to give the French fashion house a new dynamism. Hannah Tindle heads to Paris to meet the designer
-
Glenn Martens’ thrilling Maison Margiela debut was a balancing act between past, present and future
The Belgian designer made his debut for the house last night with a collection that looked towards medieval decoration for a new expression of opulence
-
Art meets perfume in cross-disciplinary fragrance series Nez 1+1
Talents from film and fragrance come together to create Ansongo, the latest scent resulting from a creative matchmaking project by perfume revue Nez
-
Haute Couture Week A/W 2025: what to expect
Five moments to look out for at Haute Couture Week A/W 2025 in Paris (starting Monday 7 July), from Glenn Martens’ debut for Maison Margiela to Demna’s Balenciaga swansong. Plus, ‘new beginnings’ from JW Anderson
-
The collections you might have missed this S/S 2026 menswear season
Between the headliners in Paris, Milan and Florence, a few off-schedule displays are deserving of honourable mention – from Martine Rose’s sexually-charged portrait of Kensington Market to Sander Lak’s appointment-only namesake debut
-
‘They gave me carte blanche to do what I want’: Paul Kooiker photographs the students of Gerrit Rietveld Academie for Acne Studios
Heralding the launch of a new permanent gallery from fashion label Acne Studios, the celebrated Dutch photographer’s new body of work praises the bravery of ‘people who choose to go to an art school at a time like this’