Artifice as Formalised Ritual – Vestoj

A Conversation With Rick Owens

Anja Aronowsky Cronberg — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 00:35:47 +0000

HE SPEAKS TO ME through the ether. He’s a fashion designer known for his love of the colour black. He’s in Italy, he tells me, starting to think about his next men’s collection. When he speaks, he’s gentle, attentive. I get the feeling that I could ask him about his collection or about the most intimate quirk of his character and he would answer me with the same forthright earnestness.

Illustration by Nello Alfonso Marotta

I’m a Los Angeles cliché. I had a conservative, controlled childhood, then became as uncontrolled as I could, then realised that I liked control after all. This is the story of my generation: kids that were too controlled and then became drug addicts and alcoholics before finding spirituality and Zen. It’s so common. I’m totally common.

I was pretty effeminate and sensitive as a boy. It’s that same old story: sensitive boy in a small town, trying to fit in. I felt threatened pretty much all the time. Growing up, there was a certain set of rules or expectations about how to behave. That angered me, and later on I felt vengeful. I tried to conform, but I never managed to do it very successfully. I was forced to bend, to act in a way that I was uncomfortable with. Their rules didn’t seem fair. They were limiting and uptight and didn’t make sense. I had to become more masculine. I couldn’t be flamboyant; I had to butch it up. It was humiliating. In a way I suppose it helped me form a sense of defiance and rebellion and when I left to go to art school in the big city, I became as flamboyant as I possibly could.

I lived in a warehouse by the railroad tracks in L.A. You had to climb in from a set of stairs. I had this great car with fins on it. I wore platform boots and capes and full make-up. I wore gloves to bed. But when I went back home to Porterville to see my parents, I’d take off all the make-up and nail polish and put on normal clothes. What would be the point of going to their house and provoking them? If I wanted to have a relationship with them, I had to compromise. That isn’t a bad thing. And in the later years, when I was completely honest with them and allowed them into my life, they had to make some compromises too. That was lovely. In a way, it was the money that made them change their minds about me. (Laughs.) My parents figured, well as long as he’s successful he must be okay. It was kind of bittersweet because obviously it was a false context, but then life isn’t perfect.

I’ve always wanted to participate in the world, to be involved. When I was younger I was timid and had a problem fitting in so I drank to give myself courage, but I’ve always found a way to communicate with the world. The world that I propose to people is not meant to impose or insist. It’s not a manifesto, it’s a proposal. It’s meant to be gentle. Although it was born out of my reaction to the rules imposed on me, I want it to be an alternative, not the only option. That’s really important to me.

I like artifice. I don’t mean lipstick and Botox – I’m talking exaggeration and enhancing ideas, rather than trying to look young. Think of Kabuki or the artifice of a room with a scroll on the wall and one flower arrangement. A tea ceremony: artifice as formalised ritual. Well, maybe it’s not that different from Botox and lipstick after all. Maybe it’s wrong of me to think that one is more sophisticated than the other – I don’t want to be the kind of person who claims to know what the rules really are. I hate sounding opinionated even though I probably am. The artifice I like is always exaggerated and borderline ridiculous. It’s challenging the codes of good taste and notions of conservative beauty in a good-humoured way. Humour is one of the most elegant things in the entire universe, you know.

I’m a fifty-five-year-old man with grey curly hair that has been chemically altered to be black, straight and long. I’m a fifty-five-year-old man who has gone to the gym for twenty years: I’ve altered my body in a very calculated way through steroids and working out. I started going because I was drinking so much that I had to balance that out, but also because I wanted to change my body. I just wasn’t happy with it as it was. My wife was always going to the gym, and she pushed me to go too. Today it’s as regular as brushing my teeth, just something I do to feel right. A grooming habit. I’m not saying my body is perfect, but it’s as perfect as I can make it. I don’t need to rely on clothes to hide flaws or make it look better than it actually is. I’m also very comfortable with my feminine side now. I’m definitely an old queen.

I wouldn’t say my clothes are radical, but for somebody my age I suppose they’re a little bit ridiculous. What I wear is a logical answer to the way I live and what I need to do. I don’t really have anything I want to say every day with my clothes so they’ve become a sort of uniform. I have twenty copies of the same outfit. I wear sneakers of my own design. I’ve become very known for sneakers which is ironic considering that when I first started doing them it was almost a parody. I thought sneakers were the most boring things on the planet. They represented complete banality to me. But I was going to the gym and I needed some so I started doing my own exaggerated version, and they’ve become a signature of mine. It’s one of the things I sell the most of now. The ones I wear are on a stretch leather sock: they’re kind of a sneaker combined with an opera leather glove. I wear those, and baggy shorts that end below my knees. The sneaker-socks cover my knees because I think it’s a bit rude to show bare, hairy knees everywhere. It’s more discreet to cover up. I also wear a silk jersey tank top and a black cashmere turtleneck. When I go to the gym, I just take my sweater off and push my socks down and I have my gym outfit. I don’t really do anything that cardio vascular, just weights and stretching so I don’t get sweaty. It’s all very practical. My shorts obviously reference skateboarders or Mexican gangs in L.A. from the Eighties, or they can reference a sort of Buddhist monk situation. The black turtleneck could be read as a reference to the Beats in Saint-Germain in the 1960s: it’s architectural, formal and severe. Over that I always wear a black bomber in nylon, partly because Montana always wore one in the Eighties, and partly because leather has become too heavy for me. The tank top doesn’t represent anything. In short, I’m a fifty-five-year-old man wearing evening glove running shoes with shorts – probably not every fifty-five-year-old man’s dream look. (Laughs.) But for better or worse I’ve established myself as a fashion designer in Paris, and as such you’re expected to uphold some kind of aesthetic eccentricity. If I showed up in a suit, people would be disappointed.

I’m not really interested in clothes, for me personally I mean. I never buy them. You know, the interior designer Jean-Michel Frank had forty identical grey flannel suits in his closet: I always thought that was the height of modesty and extravagance at the same time. I love that. I don’t remember when I decided to start wearing this uniform but I’ve been doing it for a long time. In the Nineties I wore tight black jeans, black platforms, a black T-shirt and a leather jacket. That was my uniform then. After that I wore army surplus shorts over sweatpants with a T-shirt and a leather coat for a long time, probably until I came to Paris. In Paris I replaced the leather coat with a sable-lined one, but I still wore army surplus pants. Eventually that morphed into what I wear today. I have a set look for a couple of years and then I make a change. When I see people changing styles all the time, it makes me wonder: don’t you know who you are? I don’t mean to be critical, but I question their sincerity.

In my uniform I can go anywhere – to the opera or to a rave. There are rare occasions when I alter it, out of respect for the situation. I went to a state dinner at the White House this year, and I wore my shorts and sneakers but with a long black silk duchesse blazer and a black silk turtleneck. I didn’t want to be rude. I want to live the life I want to live, but when I go to somebody’s house I respect their vibe. Being polite is more important than being defiant. I don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable. I’ve shown nudity and bizarre stuff at my shows but a fashion show is a sophisticated aesthetic arena where people expect a certain element of surprise and challenge. I wouldn’t do those runway shows for my mother’s church group. That would not be polite.

The most successful men’s fashion is conservative with just a hint of rebellion. Imagine something classic, but with a ripped lining or a hidden strap that implies S&M. That’s the stuff that sells the most in stores. I do clothes like that myself. It’s a funny period for menswear. It’s so popular and yet so restrained. We’re so prudish today. I don’t know why the catwalk isn’t more exaggerated – I guess flamboyance ran its course. One of the inspirations for my men’s clothes is Neil Young. He doesn’t care about dressing up. He’s a poet and he’s masculine but he’s sensitive too. He seems honest, with a sense of honour. I don’t think honour tops the list of women’s attributes but it’s one of the appealing things about a man. We expect men to build the house, and women to make it a home. In a very primal way we still want men to be providers and women to add grace.

Fashion is popular because it’s a mystery. It’s the ebb and flow of the subtle things we propose as designers, and that people respond to like flocks of birds turning all of a sudden in the middle of the sky. That’s what makes it fascinating. It’s all about instincts and subtle references that certain people can grasp in a very vague way. It’s a pattern or code that is understood by a group of people at the same time. To be a designer you have to change enough to maintain interest, but not change so much that you come off as insincere. It’s a tricky balancing act. I wonder when the day will come when I no longer understand what is relevant in the world, and I continue refining a vision that’s no longer significant. We’ve seen that happen, and I dread the day it happens to me.

My father died not long ago so I’ve been thinking a lot about mortality. He was a very confrontational man, very analytical. He liked putting people into a corner intellectually – it was a form of bullying. He could be so critical of the way people live their lives and in the end he became very bitter. I never had the chance to ask him why he, after all those years of thinking, couldn’t find serenity. He wasn’t able to negotiate the ending of his life in a graceful way. He was so observant, and he believed in being a resolved human being – someone who thinks correctly – and still he never managed to make peace with the fact that he was dying. It made me think about the world and about how to find graceful ways to deal with threats. That’s what I would like to do. I’d like to end up in a garden with a wall around it, reading and playing with kittens. That’s probably the best I can hope for. I’m not going to have grandchildren. Well, I guess in a way I will because I surround myself with people, and some are having children. I love seeing babies around. So I suppose I will have the comfort of being in a garden and playing with kittens and babies. I don’t know what could possibly be better than that.

This interview was originally published in Vestoj ‘On Masculinities.’

Anja Aronowsky Cronberg is Vestoj’s Editor-in-Chief and Founder.

On Mercantile Liasons

Angelo Flaccavento — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 03:49:26 +0000

FASHION WEEKS ARE PECULIAR rituals stretched over ever expanding slices of the annual calendar in which fashion professionals prove their worth. They are like the Olympic Games of glamour: designers show off their ability to catch and direct the Zeitgeist, stylists their editing skills, writers and critics their wit in making all this colourful blurb comprehensible for the general public, even when the actual message is little less than the emperor’s new clothes. In this sense, writers are a fundamental part in the whole mechanism, and in fact reading show reviews is a regular and often enjoyable commitment in the self-reinforcing and exclusive routine of attending fashion events. In the morning, right before the action of the new day starts, it is with a mixture of expectation and delight that we read what Suzy Menkes, Cathy Horyn, Vanessa Friedman, Sarah Mower, Tim Blanks, Godfrey Deeney and all the other penmen who have made it to the upper echelons of the industry – for their sharp and insightful views at best, for the weight and circulation of the publications they are affiliated to, in most cases – have written about the previous day’s shows. It might be a way to understand a designer’s message, as in the case of a hardcore conceptual like Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, while sometimes it is a way of making overtly and perversely obscure references more approachable, as with Miuccia Prada. As industry people delve into these daily offerings of critical flourish, everything is carefully scrutinised: from the length of the paragraph dedicated to any given designer, to the countless ambiguous phrases that force the reader into a game of guesswork as to whether a reviewer thought a show was, basically, good or bad. Reading between the lines is a perilous, if amusing, activity and it isn’t for nothing that every comma is evaluated and every adjective dissected, as if these often hastily composed reports were the offerings of an almighty and ancient soothsayer. Why do we do it? Well, it’s simple: we all – readers and professionals alike – strive for objective criticism, knowing all too well the many obstacles that prevent this utopian ideal from becoming reality.

Fashion houses, and the corporations that in most cases own them, have gained immense power in recent years, not least over the press. These glamorous Goliaths like to flex their muscles, and we, the critics, are constantly reminded of that – by our publishers, editors and by the many PRs and assorted gatekeepers who rule the game in increasingly insidious ways. Fashion, as an industry, survives because of commerce, and commerce is the result of carefully planned media exposure: everything that gets in the way, true criticism in primis, is seen as nothing less than danger, a menace to avoid at any cost. A case in point is the discrepancy between the frank and open, if studious and cautious, after-show talk and what actually filters through to the subsequent written reports. Fashion reporters have become masters of insinuation and understatement, and the subtle critiques that materialise often become nothing but passing frissons – background noise for corporations that have understood the value of column inches.

Like many of my colleagues, I am a freelancer. I would never trade the ability of choosing who to work with for a full-time job, yet as a freelancer my income depends on the pieces I write. In other words, I depend on access. This means that my stock and trade lies in cultivating relationships with fashion houses. These relationships are often based on consideration and frankness, on and off the record, but are not to be confused with friendship, though we are all in constant danger of doing so. Within this foggy frame, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep one’s own critical voice, but having an opinion is what actually makes you respectable, even in the eyes of your foes. Yet, the industry forces us to sharpen our critical tools only up to a certain point. Past that, there’s a wasteland of quandaries. Should I choose to write something that might upset a fashion house, and so sour the gracious relations I have built, I may well lose the opportunity to attend said brand’s shows or to interview its designer, and with it, my ability to do my job dwindles. Navigating the politics of fashion comes down to subtle manoeuvrings: on the writer’s side, about how to express a pointed opinion in a gentle way, and on the designer’s side about how to accept criticism as a stimulus, not as brutal backstabbing. In my career, I have met many designers who openly and willingly accept a bad review, just as I have met many bigwigs who take a good review for granted. Generalising, in other words, is pointless.

The real problem, however, is elsewhere. As a freelancer, I, on a daily basis, witness the strange intertwining of commerce and freedom that is the real poison of the contemporary fashion industry. There is a constant migration and osmosis between fashion houses and editors, writers and stylists, which can translate into some very shady business. Prominent newspaper writing, in fact, sometimes opens the door to the odd, well-paid bit of corporate text, or perhaps a commission to write the press release of the very same show you are supposed to review, which means a treacherous blur of ethical boundaries. A journalist with a sharp tongue and a good reputation might also be hired as a communication consultant for a brand, which makes things even trickier, ethics-wise. Similarly, on-staff magazine stylists often consult for fashion houses in more or less transparent ways, and editors know when to look the other way. Independent magazines often double up as communications agencies, allowing their publications to act as calling cards for their good taste and access while their mercantile liaisons wither away any potential to critically examine the business. Lavish press trips – all-expenses-paid voyages to far-flung and exotic locations in order to review a pre-collection or special event – are another perk of the job. Though nothing is clearly expressed in terms of expectations, it is highly improbable you’ll read much in the form of criticism afterwards. Our mild and gentle opinions are somehow secured with business class tickets and five-star hotels, and with the promise of a continued membership in fashion’s hyper-exclusive clique. Fashion is perilously seductive: it makes a five-star luxe lifestyle available to every top-class insider, even when they live on the dole. You get spoiled like a superstar, and the temptation to engage in foggy ethical deals can be overpowering. Moreover, as a system fashion has the unique power of turning an enemy into an ally – just think of the way bloggers, in just a matter of years, passed from being independent voices to trumpets of the most blatant and banal product placements. The fashion industry is a game in which we all play a part. Even this story, published in this magazine, is part of the very same game, whether the upshot is an editor relying on my voice to express frustration, or in providing me with an outlet in which to convey myself differently. We all want exposure and the power that follows, and en route we are rewarded with all from freebies to the admittance to a famous designer’s sancta sanctorum. Yet, the closer and more friendly you get to a house or a designer, the more difficult it becomes to compose an honest commentary.

Today fashion journalism is turning into, at best, decorative fodder or, at worst, astute product placement. Magazines no longer depend on newsstand circulation for their income, banking instead on advertising pages to pay for production and staff salaries. What’s more, the luxury industry also underwrites most newspapers today, yet staff members and editors-in-chief often overlook fashion, framing it instead as ancillary, secondary material. The frustration that this breeds in the many journalists who devote their time and wit to fashion is understandable, and an argument could be made about how further compromises to our code of conduct stem from it. The ubiquitous street style photographers outside fashion shows, for instance, are creating niche celebrities of behind-the-scenes professionals, and the shrewder among my peers often use their personal Instagram feeds or other social media channels for undercover advertising. In return they are rewarded with the latest threads as gracious thank-you cadeaux. This may seem harmless at first but the pervasive and shady influence that allows a journalist – and supposed free thinker – to be paid by a fashion brand to wear its clothing erodes not just the confidence our readers have in us, but also undermines progress and development within the industry at large. Another element worth mentioning is that we, the critics, are made of flesh and bone: we are not machines, and sometimes we fall in love – professionally speaking – with a designer. Excessive praise could lead to a perceived loss of integrity in the eyes of our readers, and the fact is that we sometimes simply make mistakes. However, as long as the industry overall is perceived as non-transparent, even simple mistakes make us all seem guilty.

That the contemporary fashion system discourages all forms of criticism is becoming painfully apparent in the cultural wasteland we have before us. Fashion today is mostly about communication, and instead of design innovation we have an endless postmodern pillage of old ideas, haphazardly reshuffled as new products in need of new marketing campaigns. True fashion criticism goes hand in hand with progress, because it’s only through questioning and debating that new solutions
and new scenarios are created, and that movement is ignited. But this aspect is in constant danger of being silenced: sometimes with big dictatorial moves (removing ads from a publication being the most blatant), sometimes through more subtle pressures like denying a reporter access to a show or a stylist the chance to borrow clothes for shoots. So let us not forget that criticism is an indispensable act, and an opportunity for any industry for self-questioning. Believing that everything is rosy while things crumble around you will only help accelerate the fall of the Empire – though that may well be what we need in order to start again. If the odd bit of criticism that we are allowed can ignite a reboot, we’re off to a good start.

Angelo Flaccavento is a fashion writer and regular contributor to The Business of Fashion, L’Uomo Vogue and Fantastic Man.

This article was first published in Vestoj On Failure.