User:Allysonsu/sandbox

Early Life
Owens grew up in Porterville located in Southern California. He briefly studied at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles but dropped out after two years. Owens went to a two-year program at a trade college, studying pattern-making and ended up working for illegal knock-off companies in cutting their patterns. Eventually, Owens began his own label in 1994, selling to only Charles Gallay who ran a boutique in Los Angeles which carries notable brands such as Versace, Mugler, and Margiela.

Furniture Line
Not only does Owens design clothes, he designs furniture. His furniture was originally custom-designed and tailored for his own use while in Paris. Owens’s furniture line is influenced by architectural elements such as Brutalism and German World War II bunkers, characterized by angular movements and sculptural forms. He occasionally incorporates a pair of antlers, mimicking asymmetric wings to a pair of chairs. Owens is now represented by a design gallery called Jousse Entreprise.

His first furniture show in Berlin was made possible by the publisher, Angelika Taschen. Taschen has known Owens and his wife since they lived in Los Angeles. Taschen included his Parisian living space in her book, New Paris Interiors. She was taken away by Owens’s eye for furniture design and wanted his work to be showcased in her hometown, Berlin. The Berlin Gallery Weekend took place from April 30th to May 2nd in which 4o galleries will be open for viewing. Presented by Taschen, Owens’s show, ‘To Pop A Boner,’ was on display at the famous Apartment store.

Michelle Lamy
Owens credits his wife, Michèle Lamy, as the creative force behind his shows. They met in Los Angeles during the 1990s when Lamy owned Café des Artistes. She supported Owens’s work from early on. They lived together from a bohemian, Baudelaire inspired place to a place marked with their own Rick Owens label. Eventually, Owens and his wife moved to Paris in the early 2000s, after acquiring his title at Révillon. After relocating from LA to Paris, Owens and his wife had the idea of conjuring up their own furniture line to fill up their new space in Place du Palais Bourbon. Since 2007, the couple has worked together through the design process for their furniture line. Owens comes up with the drawings in which Lamy then creates the preliminary models for. Before his wife hires artisans to create the final pieces made from marble, alabaster, bronze, leather, and plywood, the two carve, re-proportion, and make any adjustments beforehand.

Creatch
The “Creatch” cargo pants originated from the Spring/Summer 2008 collection and reappears in almost every subsequent collection in menswear. The design remains the same: a straight leg, drop-crotch pants with an elasticated waist, circular velcro sash, and one cargo pocket on each leg.

Stooges Leather Jacket
The Stooges leather jacket was worn by Kate Moss in the French Vogue magazine and gave Owens prominence within the fashion industry. With the help from Anna Wintour and Vogue, Owens produced his first runway show, ‘Sparrows,’ in the Spring/Summer 2002 collection at New York Fashion week, featuring this leather jacket design. The biker jacket is constructed with angular flaps and an asymmetric zipper, made up of washed leather.

Original Dunk/Geobasket
The Rick Owens Geobasket sneakers came from his 2008 Menswear Collection. After his launch of the “Geobaskets,” Nike claimed that its silhouette was similar to one of their previous silhouettes: “Dunks.” As a result, Nike took off the sneakers from the market, leaving only a finite number of pairs still left. The original Geobaskets have an exaggerated shape and longer tongue length, meddling across the line between a sneaker and a boot. It was the “swoosh” design on the side that Nike objected to. These shoes range from $800 to $2,500 depending on the condition and colorway. Another iteration of the Geobaskets was made afterwards without the swoosh design and is readily available today.

Plinth
The Plinth Collection was shown in Owens’s Fall/Winter 2013 menswear show. The pieces started out with an A-line silhouette, incorporating an oversized military-like sleeve which intended to make the arms more powerful. The jackets were belted high. The look finishes off with large boots which add a level of solidity. The models’ hair were teased in which the designer decided to name the style, “Boy Chantilly.”

Vicious
Owens’s Spring/Summer 2014 womenswear collection, ‘Vicious,’ had a team of step dancers with members of the Zetas, Washington Divas, Soul Steppers and Momentums, walk down the runway. Owens continues to challenge accepted beauty standards, however this time, he does so without traditional models. The girls wore utilitarian garments while stomping and posing with strong and aggressive movements.

Sphinx Collection
The Sphinx Collection came out in his Fall/Winter 2015 men’s show where garments were intentionally draped over to reveal frontal male nudity. Each model was carefully chosen based on his height and proportions so that the fabric would not reveal too much or too little of his number. The clothes had a porthole over the groin of the models, taking inspiration from a submarine setting of an old French movie. The peacoats were cut from Berber blankets which one had a couture-like cape back and another had submarine rust, symbolic of decay. Cable-knit sweaters were stretched down into a full length piece. The silhouettes were long in the front and high cut in the back.