Back in March, Rick Owens presented his Autumn/Winter '12 womenswear collection in Paris. In a brutal line-up with the devil-may-care elegance of the divine, his pure lines and Old Hollywood spirit were punctuated by an esoteric take on "veils" – here, shredded beanies adorned the face rather than anything resembling bridalwear – while the backdrop to his catwalk was a strip of flames: Paris, quite literally, burning. It would take a memorable soundtrack to stand out in this lissome 12 minutes, but from the moment the pounding, minimal beat of Zebra Katz’s "Ima Read" kicked in, a mushroom cloud headed skyward over cyberspace – "What is this fierce record?!" The answer: a repetitive mantra by Ojay Morgan (and his kickass sidekick Njena Reddd Foxxx), with the attitude of hip hop, the silhouette of ball culture and a subtext of literacy.

For Katz, a New Yorker via Florida and Jamaica, life has been an accelerated blur since then, everyone wanting a piece of "that bitch". Here's what happened when we took him on the Eurostar from London to Paris, his first visit to the city of light; shooting, speaking and hanging out at Rick Owens' Place du Palais Bourbon HQ...

CREDITS
Photography and Styling Rick Owens