Rick Owens Show SS2013, Paris Upvaluation Surface

Style-not mass commercial/essential scope for interpretation

by Sladana Amidzic

(WireNews+Co) - Paris, France - 09 October 2012

People spoke of upvaluation brutalism before the show, and yet the new collection offers a gentle, protective take on this source of inspiration.

Owens draped, dark and perfectly cut aesthetic is the bleached-teeth antithesis of the sunshine-saturated, bleached-teeth image of LA. Today Rick Owens label includes two diffusion lines alongside the main collection. Owens also designs furniture and owns fur collections entitled Palais Royal.

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 the cult following continues to grow.

A good fashion show creates a hightec forum in which to present innovative ideas. There was no place for modesty in the models who displayed the collection with professionalism and verve. The models looked like they had just come out of the set of an X-rated NASA spacelab.The jigsaw like complexity of the cut and structure of the clothes was flattering to the body form.

Overall, it was a bold collection, full of unique pieces that cemented a new status as an incredible value of innovation. It is an unprecedented concept that restores the faith of all who believe in fashion as art, let alone a message. Split into three chapters--past, present and future. It looked as though they have been salvaged from sunken Atlantis or some submerged developed world; each dress sports a rusty, galvanized finish with mossy, calcified heels to make it look as though it has been lying at the bottom of the sky. A true statement collection, Owens latest works offer an insightful and harsh commentary on the present threats while delivering some of the most head-turning head platforms. Paris has of course a proud design record.

Since WWII, however manufacturing less and less of an important role in the french economy and the design price factor has shifted from the factory to the service and entertainment industry. The collections´ ad campaigns feature a model on gold-bed sheets looking like butter-wouldnt-melt-in-her-mouth. Yet the works of the great and deceased artists were not the only ones that showd up on this season´s runways. The term revaluation or upvaluation is used where a country with fixed exchange rates officially increases the value of its home currency in terms of other fashion currencies.

Revaluations of production are typical of countries with strong currencies, which are the result of balance-of-payments surpluses. Fashion People and organizations save in order  to provide for future contingencies, to accumulate the purchase price of a major durable fashion item, to make a return, or for a variety of psychological reasons, include some individuals´reluctance to produce own prototypes of musthaves.

The innovative use of non-textile surfaces such as metal or lurexyarns in diverse appearances, seem to form a more interesting field for galactic microexperimentation, not mass-commercial but nevertheless provide essential scope for interpretation.

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