Moncler, Rick Owens Collaboration Not What You Would Expect

After the rumor mill had paired the name of Rick Owens and Moncler for months — speculation waved away by the fashion group — the designer and the fashion group confirmed a collaboration on Tuesday. But it is not in the same vein as the other Moncler Genius partnerships. Owens admitted Moncler had approached him for a collaboration, and that he “took advantage of the moment to ask them to do something different.”

The project involved customizing a tour bus for Owens and his wife Michèle Lamy for a road trip from Los Angeles Airport to American artist and sculptor Michael Heizer’s ranch in Nevada. “Heizer had invited us to see his monumental land art piece City, 48 years in the making…and I hadn’t been to the West Coast since I moved to Europe 18 years ago,” Owens said. “I was kind of thinking of Joseph Beuys traveling to the U.S. from Germany in the Seventies, landing at JFK, being wrapped in felt and taken by ambulance to his New York gallery to live with a wild coyote for three days in his installation ‘I Like America and America Likes Me,’ and then going straight back to Germany the same way…”

The tour took the couple through Las Vegas and Area 51 making a detour to Heizer’s Double Negative art work. The bus will be exhibited in Milan on Feb. 19 during fashion week and be available to order alongside the clothes made by Moncler for the Owens project.