Rick Owens is a fashion designer living and working out of Paris. Originally from Southern California, his is an aesthetic shaped by black and white 1930s Hollywood movies and the rawness of a decayed end of Hollywood Boulevard where he started his label in the early nineties after dropping out of art school.

Making bias gowns, draped t-shirts, and shrunken leather jackets from recycled army surplus clothes, he sold his collection independently to a small group of international boutiques.

After having his first runway show in New York sponsored by Vogue magazine in 2001, he was awarded the CFDA new talent award in 2002.

He moved to Paris in 2003 after becoming artistic director of Revillon, the French fur house founded in 1723.

In July of 2005 he introduced a furniture collection. Using raw plywood, resin, fibreglass, cashmere and marble, the collection is inspired by his favorite shapes from Eileen Grey to Brâncuși to California skate parks. The furniture collection has since been shown at the Musée d’Art modern in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

The first Rick Owens flagship store opened in Paris in 2006. Subsequent stores have opened in London, Milan, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.

In 2007, he was awarded the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for fashion design, as well as the rule breakers award from the Fashion Group International.

In 2017, he received the CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award.

He has authored 3 books — L’ai-je bien descendu?, published in 2007, Rick Owens, published in 2011, and Rick Owens Furniture, published in 2017.

December 2017 will see a retrospective exhibition dedicated to Owens’ work open at La Triennale di Milano.

The collections that complement the mainline label include RICKOWENSLILIES — a collection exclusively in his signature silk viscose jerseys, DRKSHDW — a collection of Rick Owens shapes reinterpreted as workwear, and HUNRICKOWENS (furs).

Photo credit: Rick Owens by Danielle Levitt