Many would say Rick Owens is on a roll, what with his major retrospective at the Palais Galliera fashion museum in Paris, his recent string of hit runway shows — and his burgeoning popularity among young generations, who dig his stalwart independence and unwavering commitment to a distinctive and original aesthetic.
So you had to chuckle reading the designer’s press notes for his spring 2026 men’s collection, in which he confesses that the exhibition “summons up thoughts of peaking, finality and decline — and I was delighted to lean into that.”
He had elaborated on this sentiment during a recent interview with WWD about his “Temple of Love” exhibition, which opens to the public Thursday.
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“It’s very much about mortality and legacy and what you leave behind,” Owens said about the Paris showcase. “What could possibly top that for me?”
And so the designer demonstrated consistency with his spring effort, conscripting Terry-Ann Frencken, his first showroom model turned cashmere designer, to reproduce some favorite knits from the early 2000s; returning to destroyed and deconstructed garments in a collaboration on leather jackets with New York punk band Suicide, and developing new versions of his fetish flight jackets and parkas, here in silk taffeta or nylon canvas.
“I wanted glamour, elegance and leather,” Owens said backstage, sipping on a tiny bottle of ginger beer. “Also there has to be a little bit of Hollywood Boulevard sleaziness…because that’s my thing.”
He returned to the parvis behind the Palais de Tokyo for the standing-only show, where models walked an elevated plank high above the central basin, gingerly descending on ladders in their Frankenstein boots, wading through the knee-deep water and dousing themselves before climbing back up and securing themselves on the grid structure with giant silver carabiners.
The show will be remembered for the bone-shuddering bass of the Klaus Nomi soundtrack, and the decadence of submerging all those expensive shoes and leather coats.
Owens reprised the Dracula collars from his sensational fall collection, and also explored straps as a way for men to adorn themselves, and sometimes open windows to the flesh, giving “a suggestion of either danger or action, which is maybe on the way to heroism.”
Speaking about decline and leaning into things, Owens casually mentioned to WWD that he opened an OnlyFans account based on his feet. Scoop!
He said he was inspired by the Countess of Castiglione, an Italian aristocrat from the 18th century who commissioned hundreds of photos of herself, until her declining years, when she shuttered herself in a mirror-less apartment and “reduced her life to photographing her feet.
“I thought it was an interesting way of addressing aging,” Owens said, while confessing that his colleagues were concerned about him aligning himself with OnlyFans, given that most of its content is explicit adult content.
His retort?
“I’m like, I started my career with a picture of me p–sing into my mouth,” he said matter-of-factly, referring to a photo montage from 2002 that is included in the exhibition catalogue. “I mean, this is the most innocent thing I’ve ever done.”
