To heck with Instagram and its vertical aspect ratio: You wanted to film the entirety of Rick Owens’ deeply affecting spring fashion show in landscape orientation, for it was akin to watching a biblical epic by Cecil B. DeMille — with some of the camp touches of Busby Berkeley.
Yes, there were the usual fog machines belching disco smoke over the parvis of the Palais de Tokyo, but this time the real pyrotechnics were the humans of all shapes, sizes, genders and ages that poured out of the imposing Art Deco building in identically dressed groups of 20, rounding its square pool solemnly as Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 7” swelled from the speakers.
“An army of Hollywood extras in white satin,” Owens said backstage. “I wanted this to be about gentleness and softness. An army of black was not feeling right. The way the world is, we needed to be really positive.”
Pressed for a title for this transporting fashion spectacle, he settled on “The Rick Owens Army of Love Movie.”
“What we’re doing is we are showing the opposite of intolerance,” he explained. “There are forces of intolerance that create wars, and then there are forces of tolerance that resist and promote other ideas, including tolerance in aesthetics. And that’s kind of what I’m doing.”
The achieve his cast of 200, Owens called on students and faculty from local fashion schools to model his belted jedi robes, funnel-neck biker jackets, shredded bodysuits and a variety of cape styles, some short and stiff, others long, sheer and drifting from typical Owens shoulders — rammed out to there or pointing upward toward the heavens.
As the models filed out in groups, you thought of religious processions, or any number of sci-fi movie scenes. But when they reemerged single-file for the finale, it felt like a silent protest, all those proud, determined faces aligned with Owens’ strong moral compass — and flying the flag for alternative beauty.
“Personal expression is really wonderful, but sometimes making an effort to consider unity, and supporting each other, that’s a great expression, too,” he said.
It was a poignant, cinematic moment for fashion’s history books. Meanwhile, for Owens’ fans who prefer something a little more ominous and dystopian, the designer assured there will be plenty of black in the showroom.