Fresh off the back of Rick Owens’ SS16 show in which his muse, known as Jera, caused headlines by walking down the runway with a sign saying “Kill Angela Merkel Not”, the Californian couturier sits down with Jo-Ann Furniss for AnOther. In it, Owens spills the metaphorical beans on everything, from Ralph Lauren to A$AP Rocky, as well as his love of male aggression – its menace and vunerability. Here are our five favourite quotes from the interview.
“Every man wants to be heroic,” he sighs. “Male aggression always fascinates me. There is always a sense of menace and vulnerability. Whenever I do a men’s collection they are always about self-loathing; how petty, how selfish, how vain I am.”
HE IS A REACTION TO RALPH LAUREN:
“I am a reaction to Ralph Lauren. That preppy thing, in love with the British aristocracy; a whole fake world that really wants to be royal. And yet I am criticizing that kind of fakery when I am the same fake thing. Except I am a middle-aged opera queen in loafers that makes out I am a 16 year old death metal skater… It’s all fake! My hair is fake, my body is fake and my teeth are kind of fake.”
HIS WIFE IS A BEEKEEPER:
“Did I tell you Michele is keeping bees on the roof? Anyway, she’s keeping bees.”
ON THEIR PETS:
“We have ugly blackbirds that serve no purpose.”
MICHELE LAMY IS A MOTHER TO ROCKY AND A WITCH FOR TWIGS
Lamy has been given a role in A$AP Rocky and FKA twigs new videos. For A$AP, she plays his mother. “I sit on a bench in Hyde Park, give him a letter and send him on his mission.” And for twigs? “I am like some kind of witch. I’m always a witch.”
Rick Owens and Michele Lamy in AnOther Man Autumn/Winter 2011Photography Pierrick Rocher and Quentin Saunier