Taking advantage of a professional cocktail event at the Palais Galliera, I now find myself standing before the works of Rick Owens.
The Palais Galliera is indeed presenting the very first Parisian exhibition dedicated to the designer, an event that has been awaited for a long, very long time.
Born in 1961, Rick Owens grew up under the Californian sun and in the shadow of a religious upbringing that familiarized him since childhood with biblical stories.
Drawn early on to both art and fashion, he studied design before moving to Los Angeles, where he worked as a patternmaker and met the woman who would first employ him, but more importantly become his partner and muse: Michèle Lamy. Michèle is French, once a criminal lawyer, who left France to open two restaurants in Los Angeles before becoming a fashion designer. Owens met this flamboyant character when she hired him to help with her pattern cutting.
Love and art soon brought them together, and Owens nurtured the dream of launching his own label – which he did in 1992. Limited resources pushed him to salvage all sorts of materials, repurposing whatever he could find – from T-shirt jerseys to army blankets and military bags. Among his favorite colors, black reigns supreme, along with a particular shade of grey he dubbed “dust” which became emblematic of his work.
In 2003, Rick Owens and Michèle Lamy left the US and settled in Paris. Provocative and transgressive, his underground style – surprisingly – resonated widely with the public, and his success became global.
Show after show, Owens seeks to redefine contemporary beauty standards by embracing an aesthetic of strangeness. The designer draws inspiration from Baudelaire’s words: “Beauty is always strange.” His shows also carry political undertones, denouncing intolerance and patriarchy.
His sources of inspiration are diverse: his religious upbringing with its fascination for the sacred, Gustave Moreau, his Mexican heritage, and even Huysmans.
The exhibition at the Palais Galliera, curated by Rick Owens himself, unfolds through nine themes, ranging from the sacred to tenderness, including Hollywood and the 1930s. The artist’s journey begins with silhouettes inspired by American cinema, particularly bias-cut dresses. But he reinterprets this elegance in his own way, infusing it with a sense of decay: the garments are faded and worn, as if marked by time. It is a fallen Hollywood.
Owens’ work also extends outside the museum, where he has wrapped the statues on the façade of the Palais Galliera in sequin-embroidered fabric.
In the garden, thirty cement sculptures with brutalist forms, created especially for the exhibition, recall his furniture designs – beacause he also creates furniture.
So. All this being said, was I moved by the work of Rick Owens, whom I knew only from a great, great distance?
Not at all.
As my teenager would say, “I don’t have the vision”. Not in the slightest, nope.
The exhibition is titled “Temple of Love” – yet I see neither the temple nor the love.
I see the technique – and it is undeniably there, and I admire the craftsmanship – in fact, I see more sculpture than fashion.
But Rick Owens’ aesthetic is not mine at all – I find the whole thing ugly – there, I’ve said it. Perhaps that is deliberate, perhaps it is a way of demystifying Hollywood and its artificiality, or undermining unattainable beauty standards – I don’t know.
The mysticism of Rick Owens does not resonate with me either. I perceive a corrupted, dark, black mysticism. I see no transcendence in it. Maybe that is deliberate, maybe we are all fallen angels after all. Like Lucifer.
No, I don’t have the vision. Not at all.
Hollywood and the 30s
Michèle Lamy
December 5, 2025
