“Please! It was not planned. I don’t know what I have to do to tell everybody that,” Rick Owens assured editors backstage, his voice calm as ever, after the model Jera had just pulled out a banner on the runway reading, “Please kill Angela Merkel. Not.” It was a somewhat strange statement considering Mutti Merkel’s popularity – at least outside of Germany – and one that literally seemed quite empty, leading guests to believe it was indeed a stunt. “I think it said, ‘Kill Angela Merkel’ or something? Is that what it said? I don’t know because it was not my idea. He pulled it out and I punched him when he came off stage. He’s been my male muse for the past twelve years or something, and I think he just felt comfortable enough to do something in a show, and I’m furious,” Owens said.
By the afternoon, the picture had gone viral, inspiring countless memes on Instagram with people replacing those weird words with jokes. Would Owens have appreciated it? As a perfectionist, definitely not, but whichever way you look at it, the incident went hand-in-hand with previous seasons’ breaking-news talking-points on the Rick Owens runway, from the hip hop dancers to the penises—and in that sense, all news is good news. For a designer, who develops slowly from season to season within his entirely own aesthetic, a little fireworks in the production department is vital when it comes to getting people’s attention. And that’s where Owens is a genius. Well, also in that area. He acknowledges the fact that show-goers have the attention span of a small fly, and makes things truly unpredictable, even when they’re not planned.
That, of course, isn’t to say that his collections should take a backseat to the drama. As one of fashion’s most astute social commentators, Owens always imbues his work with a kind of honesty and reflection that’s hard to find in fashion, and unlike some of his peers, who are starting to refuse backstage interviews, he understands the importance of accompanying his shows with verbal contemplation. “The irony is that the collection is about male aggression, and protesting it,” Owens said. “I was fetishizing M65 American field jackets from the 60s. Uniforms traditionally are about making a man look as virile and dignified as possible, but when we look at that jacket now we see it as a sign of protest, because after the war the kids were wearing it as a sign of protest, of anti-establishment. So it’s kind of amazing that there’s this one garment that represents military heroism, and it also questions it at the exact same time.”
The M65 was interpreted in elongated versions, sufficiently Rickified, including an ivory number worn with a skirt, the combination of which served as a kind of white flag in the heat of all the aggression. “Whenever I think of men’s collections, I always think about aggression because it’s just part of the man’s DNA, and it’s something I struggle with,” Owens admitted, although his trademark serenity and cheerful nature would make that hard to believe. “And I think other men do, too. Like, when does ambition and efficiency spill over into aggression? This model just gave into his aggression and his balance was off. He became imbalanced and his aggression took over.” As for Chancellor Merkel, perhaps this episode will at least make her familiar with the Rick Owens brand. She could always swap one of those colored blazers for an M65.
Credits
Text Anders Christian Madsen
Photography Jason Lloyd Evans