Originally posted by Fashion Wire Daily Paris August 24@ 2003 -
Rick Owens: An American in Paris
By Godfrey Deeny
Think of Rick Owens as the Ben Franklin of fashion - in short order, an American in Paris, a novel inventor, a rabid iconoclast, and an individualist blessed, or blemished, with the whiff of the sexually perverse.
Admired at home in the United States, both were hailed in Paris - Franklin for his sharp wit and fertile mind, Owens for his unique vision and successful resuscitation of nearly moribund fur label Revillon.
Though they arrived as celebrities in Paris, touted as influential players in the métier of choice, they both came from modest backgrounds - Benjamin from Massachusetts and Rick from Porterville, California.
"Porterville is a very harsh, little, kinda ugly town, like super white trash. Porterville was like that movie "Gummo" by Harmony Korine," Owens says of his hometown over lunch in the Palais Royale in Paris. "When I analyzed it one time, I realized the critical turning point was one when I was young, in cut-off jeans in high school listening to Led Zeppelin, smoking pot at the river...the cliché of white trash. When somehow I got my hand on some French Vogue, during the period of Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana and saw this mythical world, totally over-the-top glamour. And I now realize that everything I do is a combination of that. It's textbook, everything comes from that."
Today it's French Vogue that features Owens, while the magazine's stars, in particular uber-fashion star Carine Roitfeld, wear the designer's duds incessantly.
"I never had the imagination to think this far - it wasn't the goal is Paris, even when I was designing clothes for everyone in LA. All this stuff is so greedy on top of everything. I never even considered that this was possible," explains the exceedingly graceful Owens, whose biggest dislike is poor manners.
Though he claims his day has little changed since coming from L.A. to Paris to direct the renovation of Revillon, Owens' diverse locales seem light years apart.
In LA, Rick calls home three storefronts in Las Palmas, replete with a stuffed monkey, thrashed sofa and windowless bedroom that he shares with long-time French ladylove, restaurant owner Michele Lamy. "The aesthetic is kinda Asia; what I thought was cool in high school, '20s, '40s, Fortuny, Vionnet. I like especially its contrasts - primitive with sophisticated. That's the stuff I've always liked - Joseph Beuys sculptures and Brancusi, where everything is so beautiful but on a rough wooden log, superb steel on plaster," expounds Owens.
Owens' fashion matches his own personal aesthetic. His blend of high glamour and Goth with battered, rough-hewn finishes mark him out as a truly unique talent in fashion - in short, a genuine rarity. Call his style "glunge" -- a hybrid of glamour and grunge, made up of echoes of the high fashion of the '20s and '30s with a "f*ck you finish."
In Paris, he stays in an 18th-century mansion on Rue Charlot in the Marais - not unlike the sort of abode Franklin would have enjoyed.
"Whenever I think of Europe I think of it as bare. Now the trees have leaves. I used to come here in the fall and winter. I'm waiting for actually living in that European gloom. California is always so nice, so I'll be fairly cheerful about it," says Owens.
Back in LA, Owens hits the beach most weekends, while in Paris he indulges in what he terms "compensations," i.e. restaurants. "We eat in the Cloiserie de Lilas, Prunier. It's very pretentious, but it's super-empty and super-quiet and pretty, though the place I eat in the most is a little bio restaurant across the street."
He's begun studying French, which is limited despite his 14-year relationship with Lamy. "I don't know a thing. And when I try, I just get this withering stare. I mean she gets this look that's so non-romantic. That kind of discouraged me. But I did start lessons," he jokes.
Owens left his central California hometown to study art in Parsons in LA back in 1979, but his interest in France was always strong. He read the greats of French 19th century literature and even owned a 61 Citroen DS station wagon. "It had a hydraulic system and drove like a boat with buoyancy. Exactly my sort of car - old '40s but also space age," he beams.
Owens ended up shifting his major to fashion and held a series of jobs doing knock-offs in the garment industry before launching his own label in 1996. His big break came when boutique owner Charles Gallet fell in love with his designs.
"Charles became my patron. He even started pre-paying. I was still making everything myself. I wasn't going to take out a loan. What me, come up with a business plan?" laughs Rick, recalling that Gallet introduced him to the world of cutting-edge boutiques on trips to Paris.
For years he refused to stage a runway show. "My aesthetic is very narrow. The first five shows will be accepted, but it could become boring very fast," argues Owens, who waited nearly half a decade after establishing his own label to stage a catwalk show.
The change of continents has not altered his day. "The pattern is exactly the same - get up, meetings in studio, go to gym at noon, come back do this, take a nap and go out to dinner. It's exactly the same. I know naps are a luxury, but I'm grateful," says Owens.
"I used to weigh about 30 pounds more. I did the steroids and the whole thing," the designer admits. "There's almost just this new contemporary type, people who did a lot of drugs, partied a bit and went too far. Then they over-correct and go to the gym and join AA and take holistic medicine - herbal remedies. But holistic medicine isn't going to do sh*t for me; my cells are so burned out. I went pretty low. But I don't regret a thing. If you hit rock bottom it freaks you out and now I'm too scared. But I'm not AA or anything."
One can't quite imagine Franklin being quite so decadent, or as graphic as Owens was in the self-portrait he shot for i-D magazine's "Spectator" issue, which featured two images of the designer in black leather chaps urinating into his own mouth.
Yet on a sunny summer day perched on a chair in this 18th century French garden, Owens looks very at home in Paris. "The clothes I can do can look awfully affected, but that's really the way I live. When clothes are scuffed or f*cked up, it is not to be provocative, or defiant. I feel a softness and discretion, and am trying to blend in. Look at all these buildings. Scuffed things work here. Why is it okay to get a piece of stone sculpture that lots of birds have crapped on, but not have a scuffed jacket?"
Owens' debut at Revillon in July confirmed his preference for a messed-up aesthetic and weakness for eclecticism. "There was a zoo on the runway," joked the designer, after showing sable, alligator, ostrich, mink, goat and vulture feathers. The collection put Revillon back in the center of the fashion stage, but seemed certain to alienate at least some of Revillon's older clientele.
"I understand the Baroness de Rothschild apparently didn't like our show," says Owens. "But how many more furs is she going to buy anyway?"
Owens' next project is revamping Revillon's flagship boutique on Paris shopping Mecca, Ave Montaigne. "We are redesigning it, supposedly in September, in line with my aesthetic. It's not super ambitious, we are not tearing down walls and re-lighting, though I have designed the furniture. But it's definitely going to be what suits the clothes. Not a Rick Owens, but very Rick Owens. I am black ripped-up wool, Revillon is black ripped-up velvet - similar but more luxe."
For his debut in the Hotel de Bourbon Conde villa in Paris, Owens invited his mother and 84-year-old father.
"Dad was always a little bit embarrassed about me being a designer, so he always referred to me as a manufacturer. He sees fashion as really, really frivolous, almost immoral. So when I think what I put him through, the fact he's still hanging around is pretty amazing," says the only son.
"When I took dad to the space, there was a Japanese camera crew following us," says Owens. "And he asked, 'Why are these people following us?' and I freaked him out by telling him they were recording us. Then when we got to hair and make-up, he asked 'All these people are here for you?' It was nice to show your parents that you are not totally crazy. He's becoming a football dad at 84. I can't wait for the day when he starts saying, 'What were the reviews like, -- what did FWD write?'"
He's funnier than I had expected.
I think it's refreshing to see a designer who doesn't take himself so seriously. B)
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thats a bit over doing it 
seems to be floowing in his footsteps too 
You think? Jeremy Scott isn't fit to lick Rick's boots. 
im glad he/s started to study french 
