With sophistication, straps, and sleaze, Rick Owens presented his collection “Temple” at the Palais de Tokyo, named after his retrospective ‘Temple of Love’ at The Musée Palais Galliera across the street. During the standing-only performance, models cautiously descended on ladders, walked a raised plank far above the central basin, dousing themselves in knee-deep water before climbing back up and fastening themselves to the grid-like structure using enormous silver carabiners to a soundscape of Klaus Nomi. Owens’s thoughts of peaking, finality, and decline were communicated through both Temple and Temple of Love.

“The exhibition tracks the pursuit of glamour and sleaze that I was looking for on Hollywood Boulevard, and eventually, improbably, ending up in a Paris museum. I have always thought of what I do as a fascination with the denseness of European aesthetic sophistication seen through a filter of American bluntness.” Owens stated in the show notes.

The collection was made up of baggy cotton canvas shorts and open-toed, padded orthopedic shoes with velcro straps dubbed “burrito sneaks”. The nylon used is GRS-certified guaranteeing a decrease in emissions, water use, and hazardous waste, hence reducing reliance on non-renewable resources. Other highlights included allowing for movement, swaying, and breathing, heavyweight leathers that have been vegetable-tanned, cut, fringed, spiked, and zippered.

As we made our way across the street with “ding dong the witch is dead,” it was hard not to feel like an Owen munchkin. We were greeted by Owens clothed three big statues on the museum’s façade with sequined materials, followed by several concrete pieces in the public gardens, attesting to his strong preference for architectural brutalism. The retrospective’s first room honors Rick Owens’ Los Angeles beginnings. One of his favorite materials, rich brown felt, covers the entire wall. His Parisian period, which started in 2003 when he made the decision to move to the French capital, is explored in the second room, which is flooded with light from the Palais Galliera’s massive bay windows. A precise recreation of Rick Owens and Michèle Lamy’s Los Angeles bedroom, complete with books, marks the end of the retrospective.

Check out the collection below:

 

CASTING: ANGUS MUNRO (AMC CASTING) & GEORGES LABBAT
STYLING: TYRONE DYLAN SUSMAN
HAIR: DUFFY (STREETERS)
MAKEUP: DANIEL SALLSTROM (MA WORLD GROUP)
PRODUCTION: LA MODE EN IMAGES
STUNT COORDINATOR: MICHEL BOUIS
MUSIC : DEATH (FROM ‘DIDO AND AENAES’) BY KLAUS NOMI MIXED BY JEFF JUDD

THE PALAIS GALLIERA AND RICK OWENS TEMPLE OF LOVE EXHIBITION WILL OPEN ON JUNE 28, 2025 UNTIL JANUARY 4TH, 2026