Rick Owens

Interview By Connie Wang
Portrait By Owenscorp

Vice

Vice: Most important question first. You are fantastically ripped. I mean, you’re shredded. Cut. Sculptural. What’s the deal?

Rick Owens:

You wear the same thing to the gym too?

So for you it’s more about working on your physique than worrying about what to wear?

Very poetic! Last season it was sexy nuns. Two seasons ago it was straight architecture. Four past? Furry cavemen. Did you lift inspiration from anywhere in particular for your Fall 2009 collection?

Crust in terms of?

You seem pretty inspired by animals and their features, and you use lots of animal materials in your collections.

As for your own hair, have you ever thought about cutting it? I mean, not that I want you to. Just asking. Please don’t cut it.

If you could make a garment out of any material, what would it be? Forget about all international furrier and leather regulations. Forget about physical implausibility and commodity rarity too.

I guess that living in Paris rather than Los Angeles has influenced how you think about design, right?

If your fashion aesthetic were a noise, what would it be?

That’s a perfect answer. If you had the chance to completely update one long-established fashion house, which would it be?

And you’ve already done that.

You’ve said that you’re a pragmatic designer and that you’d rather see your clothes in stores than out on the runway. If that’s the case, why are you so quiet on the advertising front?

It’s been a long time coming now, but the fashion world has finally caught up to the luxuriously louche and dramatic look that you pioneered. We’re seeing moms in the Midwest sliding into your leather jackets and the cool chicks at school shelling out for a pair of your boots instead of the standard Louboutins. From a guy who’s been doing the beautifully dark and broody thing for so long, why do you think you’re so relevant nowadays?

What was Rick Owens the kid like?

What about Rick Owens as a teenager?

And Rick Owens the geriatric? How will that be?

be

I’ve got to ask you about your heels. Are they comfortable? I’ve got sneaker-nerd friends who go crazy over your high-tops and are shocked to discover that you make man heels.

Your life in LA seemed like a bit of a dingy fairy tale full of fantastical characters and drugs and booze. Today, you’re ostensibly still living what we plebes see as kind of a fairy tale. There’s the five-story mansion on the Place du Palais-Bourbon and the sculpture of yourself pissing fake urine. What’s the biggest difference between the LA version of the Rick Owens mythology and the Paris version?

Last questions: What’s your biggest fault?

And your biggest virtue?