The creative artist collaborated with the designer last season, but wasn’t aware her image would be used again for the SS20 collection
For Rick Owens’ AW19 show, he enlisted artist and D100er Salvia to create otherworldly looks that saw models with horns, cheek implants, and black contact lenses with the designer declaring body modification as the new tattoos.
Last week, Owens presented his SS20 show at longtime venue Palais de Tokyo, with Salvia’s aesthetic seemingly appearing on the runway via models with bald caps and yellow contouring in unlikely places like around the nose and under the lips. Make-up artist Karim Rahman told us, the looks were an “interpretation of the Salvia girl,” but last night she took to Instagram to say she wasn’t aware her aesthetic was going to be used and she hadn’t approved or collaborated with the designer or his team.
“Rick Owens decided to send replicas of me down his runway 3 days ago, without my knowledge, involvement or payment,” the caption reads. She then goes on to detail the previous collaboration and that her ideas to create something new were overruled by Owens’ team. “I didn’t even want the models in the February show to look anything like me, I wanted to design something unique and new but him and his team just wanted to take things from my Instagram.”
She continues: “You may say I’m not the only person who ‘does this look’ but that’s because Rick isn’t the only person relentlessly stealing, but that’s another can of worms. He has endless privileges and resources, I do not, I’m not a millionaire with a team of people behind me, I'm a 19-year-old trans girl from Cyffylliog, Rick Owens is not punk, not progressive, not futuristic, he is selfish and mediocre.”
Owens and his team are yet to respond to the allegations and did not reply to our request for comment.
