Rick Owens SS23
In his spring summer, 2023 designer and provocateur Rick Owens’ ghostly and ethereal world comes alive in this Goth-princess, road warrior, angular and draped, latex and recycled cowhides inclusive collection. His usual challenges to the notions of beauty and vogue are woman-to-woman with that which is breathtakingly beautiful. Fabrics create sharp angles across the straight or one-shoulder neckline, only to be contrasted with wispy draping at the waist, then finished with clunky boots.
The designer deftly manipulates fabrics to look as if a high wind plastered the dresses to his model. His denouement of trains, pleated a-line tops, vestigial sleeves, shoulder arches, and scrumptious volume emphasizes his glorious intellect.
Zip-front bomber jackets are hard stops to the ebb and flow that was barely contained, even in his thigh-high footwear. The most arresting pieces in Owens’s show were the voluminous and saccharine ball gowns, created with layers and layers of recycled tulle. These beautiful creations’ purpose was two-fold. First, they are aptly edgy and avant-garde amid the Owens’ cannon, and second to harmonize the thesis of this collection. Rick Owens.
