As white smoke billowed over the gardens of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, a soundtrack of discordant industrial music polluted the air and the wraith-like figures began stomping in unison. This could only be Rick Owens.

Out first was Tyler Dylan Susman, Owens’ muse and protégé, wearing trousers that rode so high and so skinny that they essentially become a corset. His feet were totally obscured by the trouser ends which were so flared they bunched and dragged along the ground. Around his torso was a simple sash of black fabric, all you’d need to protect your modesty when you look like Grecian statuary.

The severe silhouettes kept coming. Creatures with incredibly thin waists and Lucifer-like shoulder pads. Black on black on black, naturally. Imposing coats with monk-like hoods that, despite their appearance, are feather-light thanks to a mille-feuille construction of the thinnest and lightest layers of sheer silk. These silks were also utilised in the tunic and robes, allowing them to float around the models in constant movement.

Local craft is a major factor in this collection. These ultra-fine silks were woven in the Como region of Italy, very close to where the Rick Owens factory is based. The pure wools used are provided in collaboration with Bonotto, a 4^th generation textile mill dating back to 1912 and situated in Veneto. The calfskin leathers used on the shorts, tank tops and jackets were tanned using wooden drums in Santa Croce sull’Arno in Tuscany by a small family-owned tannery.

As Owens writes in the show notes, the theme of this show was jubilance and personal joy. “With our world conditions under increasing threat, jubilance seems like the wrong note but maybe it’s the only correct moral response? Beyond nice to each other, isn’t personal joy what we are put on earth to do?” To an outsider, this show would seem far from anything resembling personal joy or jubilance. But as the smoke on the Palais de Tokyo turned from white to blue and red, a sudden and surprising pop of colour on an otherwise monochromatic location and collection, you quickly see exactly what Owens is doing. He is happy, he is jubilant, he’s just expressing that in an incredibly Rick Owens way.