This Fashion is Not AI, it’s The Latest From Design Rick Owens

These days, it’s far too easy to ask AI tools to create an image of a person wearing a fish tank. Or a pair of shoes made of spaghetti.  AI art has made the absurd easily

Designer Rick Owens, born in California, now residing in Paris, doesn’t need to use artificial intelligence to dream up next-level fashion. His latest line debuted in Paris recently, and it’s about as out-there as you can imagine.

The forms are crazy, wild, absurd, and somewhat terrifying, but we can plainly state: They are not boring. And sometimes to push fashion forward, or start a conversation, you need a little crazy.

In his latest 2024 series Porterville, a reference to his hometown, Owens creates a line of vaguely futuristic garments that include hugely oversized scarves, balaclavas, and crazy inflatable bladder boots.

The visual absurdity of the outfits are easy to dismiss for those not into haute couture (us included). But there’s something genuinely novel and new in the styles that feel worth sharing.

The silhouettes particularly feel fascinating, with exaggerated legs that offer a whole new visual impression.

We may not be wearing anything this wild in the next decade, but it’s nice to know designers are out there pushing boundaries.

Via NY Times, on the recent 2024 Paris show:

“The best by far came from Rick Owens, who continued his ingenious explorations of dystopian futures and evolving body morphology with things like inflatable bladder boots, columnar down coats, straitjacket cloaks in swathing volumes (and, as always, plenty of commercial knits to wear for the end times.)”