Mood board: The threat of Coronavirus on the Paris catwalks has imbued the protective silhouettes they are presenting with powerful new meaning. Marine Serre’s signature facemasks and apocalypse-inspired silhouettes, the headgear and hybrid parkas Felipe Oliveira Baptista debuted at Kenzo, the chainmail Joan of Arc armour at Paco Rabanne. Owens clothing embodies protection, whether his garments allude to pagan robes or stage outfits sported by glam rock stars. Fresh from debuting his Moncler collaboration of exaggerated outerwear on a tour bus in Milan, the designer looked to the eighties for A/W 2020, with pilled knit or satin asymmetric dresses that clung to the body, with ‘monstrous’ dome shoulder jackets and padded coats and slick thigh high boots. Models sported protective, recycled plastic gloves (a fitting accompaniment to the hand sanitizer placed on guest’s seats) and sported padded capes around their shoulders – originally duvets created for Owens’ Moncler tour bus, part priestess part rock star.
Team work: Before Owens’ show, the designer wrote to English singer Gary Numan, whose eighties aesthetic inspired his collection. He asked him if models could walk to a stripped back version of Numan’s 1979, Down in the Park. ‘Gary said yes,’ Owens show notes read. Models entered his brands Palais de Tokyo show space to plumes of smoke which billowed across the floor for that added stage presence.
Best in show: The designer also looked to the avant-garde creations of Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto, best known for designing inventive stage outfits for David Bowie. Graphic black and white patterns, which traced the outlines of Owens’ emphatically power shouldered jackets nodded to Yamamoto’s most famous bodysuit design for Bowie, a balloon trouser latex design swathed with a pattern of undulating lines. §
