His autumn/winter 2021 women’s collection marked Owens’s third show on the Venetian island, set on the very beach his apartment overlooks. While that may conjure ideas of idyll, it was far from the case. A healthy sceptic in an escapist industry, Owens is wary of the blind optimism of our moment in time. He expressed his caution in armouring leather and cashmere bodysuits – some sequined like a hyper-glamorous shield – in broad-shouldered power coats he said “turn the body into an architectural bulldozer”, and the face masks he seems to be the only designer putting on a runway.
Striding down a heli-pier – smoke in the air and backed up by a throbbing Ghostemane soundtrack – Owens’s masked crusaders wore recycled plastic jackets bolstered with big padded sleeves, patch-worked jackets in bi-product shearling and cowhide, and flamboyantly flounced evening skirts. British Vogue’s fashion critic Anders Christian Madsen spoke to Owens about his intentions with the show.
How does it feel to be showing on the beach you wake up to every morning?
I love recharging these familiar spaces with a different energy. Hearing Ghostemane pounding on the beach this morning, it delights me so.
What has it been like showing on the Lido for three seasons?
It’s been a great exercise, finding a way to do runway shows during these challenging times. Doing them on the Lido, we’ve reduced it down to our bare studio team and the factory team. We’re all doing everything, moving racks, doing hair and make-up…
Is it as organic as it sounds?
What’s great about it is that these are people who have been with the collection since the conception. There’s no audience, no outside people. We work on this collection, then we move it to the beach, and then we all review it together, pack it up and go back to the factory and start producing it. It’s a funny little ceremony.
Was this collection an extension of your men’s show in January?
Yes. In those show notes, I had written about male aggression. We were putting it together during the final moments of the election, and there was so much menace happening. We had the men’s show right after the horrific incidents in Washington, so I was very conscious of male aggression and a bigoted energy that had always threatened me personally growing up, and which I was very reactionary to.
Where do you stand with this collection?
I had written some show notes this morning talking about that same anger, but Michèle [Lamy, Owens’s partner] was telling me, “You know, you should tone it down. It’s not about that any more. It’s about renewed faith and hope.” But, you know, there’s that phrase: “Those who forget history are bound to repeat it.” That menace was so close. That election was so close. That threat is still there. Just because the election turned out in our favour doesn’t mean that the menace has disappeared. And that really disturbs me.
Designers now seem to be dividing into escapists, realists and those in between. Where do you sit?
I’m certainly not making proclamations about how these clothes are the way forward. I’m more full of questions than proclamations: questions of concern. As a gloomy Scorpio, I’m gonna always look for the fly in the ointment. I’m still in that gloomy mood, on my beach. I don’t understand why I’m the only designer – or one of few designers – showing masks. I mean, are we all pretending that doesn’t exist? The conditions we’re living under… are we just pretending it’s not there?
Like your men’s show, this collection is called Gethsemane. Is it spiritual?
It’s not spiritual at all, although my aesthetics definitely come from Catholic culture. I went to Catholic school, and in the very conservative culture I was living in, the dragging robes and the temples and all that glamour was something I could cling to as a kid. It was the closest thing to glamour I had. The fact that it was connected to morality – with the Bible – always kind of stuck with me.
How do you feel about the Bible?
I’ve always admired how it stood the test of time as a handbook on behaviour; how people from everywhere for such a long time have taken it as a guidebook. Generally, I agree with most of it. It’s about good behaviour. I also enjoy that it’s so salacious and violent. It’s talking about emotional conditions that we’ve all wrestled with for such a long time. If you think of things in biblical terms, it puts your small concerns into the context of something bigger and longer and more eternal.
After he prayed in the Gethsemane garden, Jesus didn’t fare so well…
It was an uncomfortable resolution towards an ultimate ideal: forgiveness. There was a resurrection. The crucifixion was about dying for everyone’s sins. There was a sense of purpose.
Are you an optimist?
I’m not into indulging in doom. The creative act itself is a positive, energetic gesture for hope and survival and life. But I do like to take everything into consideration. We can celebrate, but we have to be realistic. I’m fairly cynical, but ultimately, I’m definitely an optimist. And maybe a bit of a fatalist. At the end of your life, you want to be someone who’s done your very best for yourself and those around you, and for the future of all of us. Doing your best, even if it may seem hopeless, is kind of the meaning of life.
I love recharging these familiar spaces with a different energy. Hearing Ghostemane pounding on the beach this morning, it delights me so.
What has it been like showing on the Lido for three seasons?
It’s been a great exercise, finding a way to do runway shows during these challenging times. Doing them on the Lido, we’ve reduced it down to our bare studio team and the factory team. We’re all doing everything, moving racks, doing hair and make-up…
Is it as organic as it sounds?
What’s great about it is that these are people who have been with the collection since the conception. There’s no audience, no outside people. We work on this collection, then we move it to the beach, and then we all review it together, pack it up and go back to the factory and start producing it. It’s a funny little ceremony.
Was this collection an extension of your men’s show in January?
Yes. In those show notes, I had written about male aggression. We were putting it together during the final moments of the election, and there was so much menace happening. We had the men’s show right after the horrific incidents in Washington, so I was very conscious of male aggression and a bigoted energy that had always threatened me personally growing up, and which I was very reactionary to.
Where do you stand with this collection?
I had written some show notes this morning talking about that same anger, but Michèle [Lamy, Owens’s partner] was telling me, “You know, you should tone it down. It’s not about that any more. It’s about renewed faith and hope.” But, you know, there’s that phrase: “Those who forget history are bound to repeat it.” That menace was so close. That election was so close. That threat is still there. Just because the election turned out in our favour doesn’t mean that the menace has disappeared. And that really disturbs me.
Designers now seem to be dividing into escapists, realists and those in between. Where do you sit?
I’m certainly not making proclamations about how these clothes are the way forward. I’m more full of questions than proclamations: questions of concern. As a gloomy Scorpio, I’m gonna always look for the fly in the ointment. I’m still in that gloomy mood, on my beach. I don’t understand why I’m the only designer – or one of few designers – showing masks. I mean, are we all pretending that doesn’t exist? The conditions we’re living under… are we just pretending it’s not there?
Like your men’s show, this collection is called Gethsemane. Is it spiritual?
It’s not spiritual at all, although my aesthetics definitely come from Catholic culture. I went to Catholic school, and in the very conservative culture I was living in, the dragging robes and the temples and all that glamour was something I could cling to as a kid. It was the closest thing to glamour I had. The fact that it was connected to morality – with the Bible – always kind of stuck with me.
How do you feel about the Bible?
I’ve always admired how it stood the test of time as a handbook on behaviour; how people from everywhere for such a long time have taken it as a guidebook. Generally, I agree with most of it. It’s about good behaviour. I also enjoy that it’s so salacious and violent. It’s talking about emotional conditions that we’ve all wrestled with for such a long time. If you think of things in biblical terms, it puts your small concerns into the context of something bigger and longer and more eternal.
After he prayed in the Gethsemane garden, Jesus didn’t fare so well…
It was an uncomfortable resolution towards an ultimate ideal: forgiveness. There was a resurrection. The crucifixion was about dying for everyone’s sins. There was a sense of purpose.
Are you an optimist?
I’m not into indulging in doom. The creative act itself is a positive, energetic gesture for hope and survival and life. But I do like to take everything into consideration. We can celebrate, but we have to be realistic. I’m fairly cynical, but ultimately, I’m definitely an optimist. And maybe a bit of a fatalist. At the end of your life, you want to be someone who’s done your very best for yourself and those around you, and for the future of all of us. Doing your best, even if it may seem hopeless, is kind of the meaning of life.
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