Rick Owens

Born in Porterville, CA in 1962, Owens studied Fine Arts in Otis College of Arts and Design in Los Angeles for two years. His pattern-making class encouraged him to drop out to work for local sportswear companies. Owens established his own company in 1994. After selling exclusively to Charles Gallay, he signed with Italian sales agent Eo Bocci Associati for international distribution.

Owen debuted his first collection in 2002 during New York fashion week. In the next year, he designed his first menswear collection. In 2004, he decided to relocate his house from Los Angeles to Paris. In 2002, he won the Council of Fashion Designers of America Perry Ellis Emerging Talent Award. In 2007, he was awarded a Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award.

His look has been described as “glamour-meets-grunge”, but Owens himself says “I try to make clothes the way Lou Reed does musical minimal chord changes, and direct. It is sweet but kind of creepy. It’s about giving everything I make a worn, softened feeling. It’s about an elegance being tinged with a bit of the barbaric, the sloppiness of something dragging and the luxury of not caring.