EXCLUSIVE: Rick Owens Womenswear SS13

"This season the hair was quite extreme – sculpted wigs with a center parting were shaped into full on volumized geometric bobs, shapes that defied gravity at times or appeared to. That affected how we looked at the faces of the cast, with strict perimeters before we started casting. We narrowed the girls into two categories; the washed-out, beady-eyed aline beauties we love and adore, and then some stronger featured women who embodied the hair outright.

We used a good number of new girls this season, something we try to do quite a bit, 50/50 on average. Washed or ethereal angelic/alien beauty like Anastasia Ivanova at Nathalie, Anna Martynova at Next (who we opened with), Nastya Kusakina at Women. And then stronger featured 'women' like Marte Mei van Haaster at IMG, Alana Zimmer and Caroline Brasch Nielsen at Elite. These were our two tent poles, and then we bridged between them with variations on the themes.

I really responded to look 17 – the combination of fabrics, the light reference to the black colour blocks that appear later, and Athena from Ford NYC looked great in it.

I'd like to thank Luigi Murenu and his team personally, as I know how hard they worked to get those wigs all cut and shaped in advance of the show. It was both an extremely well envisioned work of art and an amazing accomplishment to have done it all in such a short amount of time."

Text and behind the scenes photography Noah Shelley
Catwalk photography Valerio Mezzanotti