Rick Owens AW15

Initial reaction:

Golden faced Mayan sun goddesses crash to earth and land in the concrete basement below the Palais de Tokyo.

Indulgence and opulence:

“I’ve been looking at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock house and obsessing over it. I mean, what would you wear in the Hollyhock house? What clothes could possibly live up to that?” explained Rick Owens after the show. The Mayan-influenced building, which just recently re-opened to the public after a $4.4M restoration, ignited his love of old Hollywood excess. “I’ve been so linear for so long, so I thought let’s just fall apart and collapse. And as long as I was doing that I thought let’s indulge in sequins; I’ve always wanted to do sequins. I just knew it would take some time to figure out how to fit it in to my universe and so I had a minute this time and I’m glad I did – I just love them.”

The body as a temple:

In the aftermath of his glorious, full-frontal offering for AW15 menswear, today’s show invite (a leather slab covered in long synthetic hair) suggested that this could be round two. But Owens is a designer who doesn’t succumb to shock tactics. His men’s show felt more like a primitive gesture than an empty attempt for headlines – and let’s face it; he’s not in need of it. Today, the female form was certainly playing on his mind. There were leather breast plates, which felt more like body armour than anything over-sexualised, and, like his men’s show, languid tunics that hung like flesh around the body. Pieces of synthetic hair edged their way around garments, whilst shoulders were accentuated by structured capes.