Richard Saturnino Owens (born November 18, 1961) is an American fashion designer from Porterville, California. In addition to his main line, Owens has a furniture line and a number of diffusion lines.
Early life and education Richard Saturnino Owens was raised in San Jose, California. His parents are John (d. 2015) and Concepción "Connie" Owens. His mother is Mexican. Owens was raised in a conservative, Catholic household. After graduating Porterville High School, he moved to Los Angeles, California to study art at Otis College of Art and Design for two years before taking pattern-making and draping courses at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. This led to work in the garment industry, designing copies of designer clothing.Rick Owens fashion latimesmagazine.com 2008/09 Owens was introduced by his then-boyfriend Rick Castro to Michèle Lamy, who was well known in the Los Angeles social scene and owned the "Lamy" sportswear brand.
Career Owens launched his fashion line in 1994, operating out of a store in Hollywood Boulevard. One of the first boutiques to carry his clothes was Charles Gallay, who was known for carrying avant-garde designers. He gained notability after Kate Moss was photographed by Corrine Day for Vogue Paris in one of his signature leather jackets. According to Owens, the jacket was picked out by the fashion stylist Panos Yiapanis, likely after reading an article mentioning Owens in Dutch Magazine. This attention led to Vogue America sponsoring his first runway, which he titled "Sparrows FW02". Owens also attributes early support by Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, to a phone call made to him by André Leon Talley who was the editor-at-large of Vogue at the time.
He moved to Paris in 2003 with his partner Michèle Lamy, a decision that was partially motivated by being mugged in Los Angeles. He set up his home and atelier inside a historic five-story building that previously served as offices for former French President François Mitterrand. His runway collections have been mounted in Paris since then. In 2004, Owens and Michèle Lamy established their own fashion company Owenscorp, and described their business partnership as “asking a gypsy to organize a war with a fascist.”
In 2013, Owens exhibited his 'Prehistoric' collection at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in London. Owens' design color palette in this seven piece collection stretches from white to black, stopping nowhere in between. "The show is entitled 'Prehistoric' – a name that reflects its inspiration, the origins of humanity, it recalls a mysterious ancient civilization. Its aura is one of spiritual ritual, archaic ceremony and supreme power".
A recipient of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Perry Ellis Award for Emerging Talent in 2002 and the CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, Owens was also awarded the Cooper-Hewitt Design Award for fashion design, as well as the Fashion Group International Rule Breaker Award in 2007. His first museum exhibition and retrospective, chronicling over 20 years of his life's work, entitled, "Subhuman Inhuman Superhuman" opened at the Triennale di Milano on December 15, 2017. In June 2019, Owens won Menswear Designer of the Year Award at the 2019 Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Fashion Awards.
Owens has authored four books — L'ai-je bien descendu? (2007), Rick Owens (2011), More Rick Owens (2023), and Rick Owens Furniture (2017), along with two books about Larry LeGaspi, which were published in November 2019 by Rizzoli.
He had launched five labels including RICK OWENS, DRKSHDW, RICKOWENSLILIES, SLAB, and HUNRICKOWENS (previously "Palais Royal"). SLAB was a diffusion line that consisted of basic garments with unique finishings such as distressing, oil washing, and waxed coatings. This line was later replaced by his DRKSHDW line in 2005, which would continue the focus on basic garments with cellulose fabrics.
In 2018 and 2019, he has collaborated with Birkenstock and French sneaker brand Veja, respectively. The latter collaboration continued for five seasons, with its conclusion announced in November 2021. Owens added to this series of partnerships in 2020, designing capsule collections in collaboration with Moncler and American activewear brand Champion. In 2021, Owens would collaborate with footwear brands Dr. Martens and Converse. In a 2017 interview with WWD, the brand was reported to have brought in $120 million the previous year. Owens noted in the same interview that his label planned to remain independent from corporate investment.
In 2019, Owens dedicated his autumn/winter collection, "Larry" to Larry LeGaspi, the eminent designer he considers his creative forefather. He discussed the influence of LeGaspi's work on his own in publicly available shownotes; "For me, as a teenager growing up in Porterville, California, what Larry LeGaspi did was a huge thing—the way he infiltrated middle America with this subversive sensibility [...] [h]e connects with soul culture—black soul culture and music [...] [a]ll of this stuff coming together was very important to this kid in Porterville." And, "I do think of Larry’s as a kind of biblical story... about the glory of lust and vice, something I talk about a lot, but also about dissipation and decline—which I also talk about a lot... When I was 15, I wanted to be dissipated. And now I am, a little bit. But there is also responsibility." In November 2019, Owens returned to Los Angeles for the first time in 16 years to introduce the books.
In 2025, Owens entitled his retrospective exhibition at Palais Galliera Paris "Temple of Love" in specific reference to The Sisters of Mercy song "Temple of Love". Time Out Critique Rick Owens: Temple of Love au Palais Galliera
Personal life Owens is bisexual. Owens married the French designer Michèle Lamy in 2006.
Notable collections Rick Owens typically produces a menswear and womenswear collection each season. These collections often share the same title and theme.
MONSTERS SS98 His Spring/Summer 1998 collection marks his first recorded fashion collection. This collection utilized his signature draping and bias cut patterning he was noted for. Owens used materials such as silks, leathers, and furs for his garments. Imagery for the collection featured American drag queen The Goddess Bunny, who also worked for Owens as a fit model in his studio. This collection is notable for including transgender models and sex workers in the documentation of the collection.
SPARROWS FW02 His Fall/Winter collection entitled "Sparrows FW02" was his debut runway show at New York Fashion Week. This show was sponsored by Vogue magazine. He was originally slated to show his previous "Vapor SS02" collection, but due to the terrorist attacks of September 11, it had to be delayed. This collection exhibited his draped and tailored designs that he gained popularity for in the Hollywood Boulevard in a muted color palette. It was a minimalistic presentation, contrasting his later shows that would feature extravagant set-pieces and performances.
DUSTULATOR FW06 Owens presented his Fall/Winter 2006 collection at Pitti Uomo in Florence with three segments. The first, DUSTULATOR, was a menswear runway collection. The collection was inspired by military and post-apocalyptic aesthetics with exaggerated and oversized treatments. The greyscale color palette was complimented with diluted, cool-toned knitwear. The collection was notable for debuting a fully-realized version of his athletic-inspired sneaker previously seen in his "Moog FW05" collection. The second part of his presentation, DUSTDAM, was an installation space exhibiting thirty garments from his new collection alongside his in-house furniture. The garments were on a wooden display thirty meters in length. The final segment, DUSTPUMP, was a life-sized wax sculpture of Owens urinating onto mirrors and sand. The statue is now installed at his flagship Paris store.
VICIOUS SS14 Owens' Spring/Summer 2014 womenswear collection had a team of forty step dancers with members from The Zetas, Washington Divas, Soul Steppers and The Momentums sororities as runway models. Their dance performance, accented with "grit face" expressions, was done in lieu of a typical runway presentation. They had trained for the runway performance for six months. Owens also intended for this collection to be more inclusive with body representation. This fashion show also marked the debut of his collaboration with Adidas that lasted for several seasons. The footwear designs took cues from Adidas' own designs reworked with Owens' design language of exaggerating shapes and proportions. The footwear collaboration was a commercial success and brought Rick Owens further into the mainstream, adding to the success and press of the fashion show itself.
BABEL SS19 The Spring/Summer 2019 collection makes references to the Russian constructivist architecture movement and the biblical Tower of Babel. The collection was shown at Palais de Tokyo in Paris with a tower the center of the runway bearing inspiration to Tatlin's Tower. Owens used this collection's influences to incorporate geometric silhouettes and design lines into his garments, and included unconventional materials such as removable tent poles to achieve this. This collection also was the first time Owens collaborated with ECCO Leather by using their translucent leather for footwear and apparel.
PORTERVILLE FW24 Owens' Fall/Winter 2024 collection pays homage to his hometown of Porterville, California and was displayed at his house and headquarters in Paris. In the collection's display, models walked around the halls of the house while members of the audience gathered along the walls. Owens experimented with a number of distinctive silhouettes, including stoles, shoulder pads, and boots. Notably, this collection introduced inflatable knee-high rubber boots, distinctive for their large volume and rounded shape.
Controversies
Exposed models during the Fall/Winter 2015 menswear show The menswear "Sphinx FW15" runway featured garments that were intentionally draped and patterned to reveal the model's genitalia. Each model was carefully chosen based on his height and proportions so that the fabric would not reveal too much or too little of his groin. Owens stated in an interview he was inspired by the male nudity of classical marble sculptures for this collection.
Model scandal during the Spring/Summer 2016 menswear show During the "Cyclops SS16" menswear show in Paris, male fashion muse, artist, and musician Jera Diarc, who worked for Owens as a model, held up a sign that read, "Please Kill Angela Merkel. Not." This action overshadowed the entire week, gained worldwide attention, and went viral. There was a lot of speculation regarding whether this was political activism, an art performance, or a simple stunt on Jera's part, or was deliberately staged as part of the show's theme of "protest and male aggression". Owens distanced himself from it and stressed that he and his company had not known anything about it in advance; he also banned Jera from his shows. Owens went on to call Jera his muse in several statements which he gave afterwards.
When Jera was asked about the incident in an interview with the magazine Highsnobiety, he was vague and did not reveal exactly what he had been aiming for with the stunt. He ended the interview with the statement, "Everything for rckNrll. Everything for art. Everything for the cause. And the cause is above everything."
Rick Owens "Dunk" Sneaker