RERUN: Rick Owens
Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud
In this RERUN episode of Fashion Neurosis, Rick Owens reflects on aging, personal style, and the evolving role of fashion as a form of resistance against narrow beauty
Key takeaways
- Aging brings a need for dignity and tailored clothing that complements facial changes.
- Heels serve as a personal protest against pervasive online judgment and societal conformity.
Main topics
- Aging and personal style
- Fashion as resistance against mainstream beauty standards
Notable quotes
I wear the heels when I go out because it's my protest. It's kind of my protest against judgment and judgment in general.
I want to be the opposite of that. I want to balance that out when I'm at the airport.
Conclusion
Rick Owens shares a deeply reflective journey of self-acceptance, artistic purpose, and
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:01) Hi, come in. Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Rick Owens. Thank you so much for being on the couch. Speaker 3 (0:21) It's my pleasure. Could Speaker 2 (0:24) I ask you why you chose what you're wearing today? Speaker 3 (0:27) Oh, I like a uniform. I just turned 62, and so I kind of, somewhere inside me, I'm still the flamboyant 19-year-old, but... I feel like I need to have a little bit more dignity. And the other thing is, I think when your face changes as you get older, like the lines and the creases, I think they can get a little messy if your clothes are too messy. And you need to kind of set it off with something a little bit more tailored. I Speaker 2 (1:02) totally agree with that. I think I used to wear a lot of vintage, but... As I've become more vintage, I don't want to look like the old clothes. So I'm right Speaker 3 (1:14) with you. And then I always wear the heels when I go out because it's my protest. It's kind of my protest against judgment and judgment in general. It's kind of to mock the judgment that we're all subject to. It's so pervasive right now. It's always been there, of course. But now with online criticism, that kind of judgment is just such an overwhelming wave that I kind of feel that I have to promote my values, which have always been about that I want to be the guy that provides options to our standard aesthetics, which can be kind of narrow. Speaker 3 (2:04) and sometimes cruel. And I mean, I keep repeating this, but I feel like that's kind of become the role that I want to have. I want to be... somebody that champions alternative aesthetics to the people who don't see themselves reflected in our standard aesthetics, aesthetics that are stridently proposed in airport beauty and perfume aisles. I've come to kind of realize that when you travel around, that has become the global standard of beauty. and aspiration. And that kind of irks me. So I want to be the opposite of that. I want to balance that out when I'm at the airport. I want to be the alternative to that. And it's not like I want to eliminate that aesthetic because it has value and it's beautiful. I don't disapprove completely. I just want to make sure that there is another option. And hopefully I can balance it out. Speaker 2 (3:18) Do you actually have a presence at the airport? Speaker 3 (3:22) No. So maybe it's just sour grapes. No, I agree that it seems Speaker 2 (3:30) particularly the level of disapproval sort of en masse at the moment, not just in the fashion world. in all the world seems very, very intense and hectoring. And I've noticed that you seem like a radical, but it's very generous and gentle the way you invite people into representing them. You know how you've just described. And I think there's a real, it's very lovely. And that's why I've always felt sort of drawn towards you. I remember first really meeting you properly when we went to the animal ball at Clarence House with then Prince Charles and Camilla. And I saw you and Michelle arrive and I thought, I'm sticking with them. And you graciously allowed me to just hang on. And I had such a fun time. I remember us going around and looking at the paintings and it was great, but you're quite an amazing figure. You're very generous with that. I Speaker 3 (4:39) always think Michelle's the amazing figure, and I'm kind of just, you know, carrying her purse. Well, you do it very well. But she's in New York right now. She is the dynamic one who travels all over the world doing these furniture installations and installing furniture in people's houses. organizing an exhibition in Dubai or Marrakesh or New York, you know, while I'm just at home taking a nap. So that's how we do the furniture. Speaker 2 (5:14) That sounds great. Speaker 3 (5:15) And, oh, she's turning 80. Well, she already turned 80 February 5th. Speaker 2 (5:21) Yeah, I went to her birth, one of probably many birthday dinners. Speaker 3 (5:26) Where? Speaker 2 (5:27) At Labrock Hall down the road Speaker 3 (5:28) from here. Oh, right, and she played Speaker 2 (5:30) the piano. I missed her playing the piano. Speaker 3 (5:33) Maybe that was another party there. But I saw online, because that's how I keep track of her a lot, online. And I saw her. There's this song that she used to sing in the cabaret of the restaurant in Hollywood when we were living in Hollywood. And it was called the King Kong Blues. It was about drinking a drink called King Kong and getting high on King Kong. We lived across from the cafe and at night, like while I was going to sleep, she would be ending the night there. And I could hear her from across the street. I could hear her singing the King Kong blues while I was going to sleep right off Hollywood Boulevard. Anyway, she sang this at Ladbroke Hall, but they kind of rigged something up. Speaker 3 (6:22) I don't know where they got the music and they had backing music and it looked like she was singing the piano. And I got FOMO. I mean, I wanted, like, it looks so glamorous and so great. I can't believe I missed it. Anyway, she turned 80 February 5th, but she tells me she wants to have a party on April 17th. Speaker 2 (6:45) That's my birthday. Speaker 3 (6:46) Really? Yeah. Because, well, then come celebrate with us because I'm having, I'm throwing her a rave at the Lido airport in Italy because it's the beginning of the Biennale. And that's when all of her friends were going to be there. And so she thought it would be fun to have a birthday rave in the Lido. That Speaker 2 (7:07) sounds so much fun. April Speaker 3 (7:09) 17th, pencil it in. Speaker 2 (7:11) Pencil it in. Do you have any obsessions at the moment? Do Speaker 3 (7:16) I have any obsessions? I mean, it sounds Speaker 2 (7:17) like you have millions, but anyone in particular right now? Do Speaker 3 (7:20) I have obsessions, you mean of people? Speaker 2 (7:23) Or just any, is there anything that's sort of a recurring thought at the moment? It could be a person or a shoe or just like a feeling almost, I just wonder. Speaker 3 (7:35) Okay, well, I'll tell you about my day. I Speaker 2 (7:38) love that. Speaker 3 (7:39) Okay, so today. I got in last night. Speaker 2 (7:43) Where from? Speaker 3 (7:45) From Paris. So I got in last night to Claridge's, and this morning I got up. And it was such a beautiful day, I wanted to go for a walk, and I thought, oh, I'll walk to the Victoria Albert. And I'll walk through the park, and I'll stop at The Row, where I've never been. I've never been to that store. And I admire what they do. And I knew that it was right around the corner from Claridge's, so I go to The Row. And have you been there? Speaker 2 (8:11) Yeah. To Speaker 3 (8:12) their store? Speaker 2 (8:12) Yeah, it's pretty amazing. It used to be an art gallery. Speaker 3 (8:15) It was really lovely. And I was just chatting. And I mean, I'm sure everybody thought I worked there. I was just Speaker 2 (8:26) wandering Speaker 3 (8:27) around, making them show me everything. And I had the loveliest time. And the quality and everything looked great. It was really beautiful. Speaker 2 (8:37) Have you ever tried on any of their clothes? I Speaker 4 (8:40) haven't. Speaker 3 (8:41) I don't know that it would really, because I thought there was a shirt, there was a beautiful cashmere shirt. And I thought, how come we don't have a beautiful cashmere shirt like that? Speaker 2 (8:50) Yeah, same. I think, oh, I love what they do. And the way it sort of cascades over your body. But I tried on a knitted jumper, a knitwear piece once, and I just vanished. The jumper took over. I became... a random middle-aged woman. I thought, oh good, there's space for all of us, you know, even though it's so desirable and alluring what they do. It's good to know that it doesn't work for everybody. Well, Speaker 3 (9:22) I actually think I'm going back for a purse. This purse, the leather is just so... juicy and tender and delicate and being the strap was so thin and pretty. I just thought, oh, this, you know, I can keep vitamins or something in it in my, in my dressing room because it's such a beautiful little pouch and it was so exquisite. Anyway, so I did that and I was listening to Shirley Horn and I've been listening to Shirley Horn. For the past, this one, a couple of albums, this song called Estate, I've heard a couple of different versions of it. I was listening to it a lot in the summer. I wish I remembered all of the words, but it's very much about acceptance. She's talking about loving summer and missing it, but it's underneath the cover of winter. Speaker 3 (10:25) And it's about remembering love. And yeah, anyway, it's a very tender, very moody thing, but it's about time passing Speaker 1 (10:34) and Speaker 3 (10:36) acceptance. And that's something I'm kind of very conscious of these days, of the things that I wanted to pursue five years ago that may be not the things I want to, or not the things I should pursue. To Speaker 2 (10:54) do with the natural progression of having a fashion empire, what sort of steps go after each other or more personal things that you thought you were pursuing? Speaker 3 (11:08) Oh, I think this was more personal. This wasn't really about work. The work, I don't know. I don't think I really change about my perception about. work. I feel the same urgency, the same, and it's almost rage that I had when I started. I feel like there are things that I want to see that are not out there that I want to see. And so I have to make them myself. And there's things that I want to promote aesthetically. And it's probably, it probably has a lot to do with ego, I'm afraid. That I want to modify or customize everything around myself. I assume it's some kind of search for control and some search for immortality. Immortality. Because Speaker 2 (12:09) I wanted to ask you, because one of the signatures, your signatures as a designer is how you emphasize proportion and how you show like in your last show for men and women, and you had this, like the lower leg, like this pillowy or like you're wearing today, this sort of boot cut leather of the knee down proportion. And it's so graceful and unusual. And you seem to have this kind of, this sort of amazing ability to exaggerate or change proportion and you embody your clothes with these sort of almost mythological elements. I'm always really interested in mythology and how to sort of have a prism where people open their minds and hearts by looking at what you're wearing. And I think fashion can do that when it's really well expressed, which you did. And I wondered how you came to this thing to do with... proportion and how it reflects back about maybe how you feel about your own. Have you ever had an obsession about your own proportion? Because I certainly did. But I'm always captivated by how you show that in your work. Well, Speaker 3 (13:35) distortion and exaggeration is always what I'm going for. And distorting the human figure is so much more profound than than doing an embroidery that takes 7 000 hours um and and i think it's i think it's braver and i think the message is um you