#SuzyPFW Rick Owens’ Burning Tower

敬請期待中文版

The burning tower at the centre of Rick Owens' spring/summer 2019 collection.

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Since I can only hobble after a crashing fall at Saint Laurent, I could not have my usual deeply informative conversation with Rick Owens before or after the show.

Black featured heavily as ever, but always in different textures.

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So for this summer 2019 collection I decided to look not for a meaning, but just as a focus for the eyes.
And what a show it was!  The models wrapped and draped in black or neutral colours, blown up or skinny to the body, walked around the Palais de Tokyo. They passed under golden autumn trees and alongside the drained pool, where a pyramid-shaped structure swiftly caught fire.

Owens' SS19 collection was based on the biblical Tower of Babel.

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Whatever its meaning, the flames seemed menacing and a little scary, as if Owens was enraged about what was going on in the world and his native America.

Models at the Palais de Tokyo.

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But the fire made it all the better to see the clothes that seemed like sculptures - beautiful as a line-up of layers in icy blue framed by ginger. Or a similar effect on mountainous pieces, in olive green and pale blue.

There was a sporty feel to many of the pieces, but in more voluminous materials.

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Then there was black, the designer’s constant colour choice, for so many pieces, but always with different textures, from cut-out shiny leather to draped full suede.

There was a sporty feel to many of the pieces, but more in puffed-up materials - not the athleisure that is powering through fashion. Strange, mediaeval looking crowns were on some heads.

Many of the clothes seemed like sculptures.

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The designer is extraordinarily skilful, with constant creation that is different - if not always radically so - from the season before. I believe this is the fourth time we have sat around the (previously full) pond with another rendez-vous in the brutal concrete cellar of the same building.

Layers of icy blue were highlighted by the fire.

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Owens is an artist and a deep thinker. And maybe it was good for me to simply absorb his work rather than asking him for an answer.