Rick Owens’ Devotion to Music - Pt.1
“One man from our region, Korsakov, ate a fresh cucumber. Accidentally he stabbed himself with his thumb in the eye and he broke his thumb. One man from our region, Korsakov, smoked. His head was spinning and he fell down and broke his tibia” pounded away at the audience’s ear drums in Estonian as models entered the runway for Rick Owen’s Spring/Summer 2014 collection, “Vicious”.
Rick Owens' weird and wonderful universe has come to encompass far more than just clothes. When looking back at Rick Owens’ eponymous label, music is what best defines the world that Owens reflects through his collections. It makes sense that the designer often creates these collections to perfectly align with the music that accompanies them on and off the runway.
Owens’ devotion to music is best represented in Vicious,where the designer commissioned Estonian metal band Winny Puhh to play a twenty minute live performance in front of an audience of Parisian fashion enthusiasts. What unraveled in those twenty minutes completely changed the atmosphere of the show. Men with hair glued to their faces played oversized bouzoukis while rappelling from the ceiling as two drummers were spun in tandem like a ferris wheel. Somehow, someway, Rick Owens managed to use this disparate Estonian band to elevate his collection. Music has always fed Rick’s collections and it will continue to do so until he hangs up the towel.