Rick Owens (born 1961) stands alone in the international fashion industry. He is that rare thing: an LA designer. Owens’ draped, dark and perfectly cut aesthetic is the antithesis of the sunshine-saturated, bleached-teeth image of LA. Born in the city, Owens grew up in Porterville, a small town in California. Moving back to LA in 1984 after high school, he studied painting at the Otis Parsons Art Institute but dropped out after two years and began to pursue his career in fashion. However, he rejected fashion college and instead studied pattern cutting at a trade school. In 1988, he took a job in LA’s Garment District, where he earned his keep as a pattern cutter for six years. In 1994, Owens set up his own label and began selling his small collections through Charles Gallay, an up-and-coming boutique. Nineties pop culture and Hollywood’s red carpet influenced his designs, resulting in bias-cut gowns and trailer park vests. Owens playfully describes his darkly chic clothes as ‘glunge’ – a mix of glamour and grunge. Rather than show on a catwalk, he instead travelled the world throughout the ’90s presenting his clothes to fashion buyers and developing an impressive client list that includes Madonna and Courtney Love. In 2002, American Vogue offered to sponsor his autumn/winter collection, his first on a runway. In the same year, Owens won the Perry Ellis Emerging Talent Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and in 2003 he moved to Paris. Today the Rick Owens label includes two diffusion lines alongside the main collection: Rick Owens Lilies, a collection of simple, stunning basics and DRKSHDW, a denim collection. Owens also designs furniture and his own fur collection entitled Palais Royal. In 2007, Owens was awarded the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for outstanding achievement and The Rule Breakers Award from The Fashion Group International. Today he owns a number of global stores and his cult following continues to grow.
