No Stone Left Unturned
Review of Rick Owens Spring 2027 Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
THE IMPRESSION TAKE
Rick Owens’ Spring 2027 womenswear collection, titled Stone, reframed stoicism as a form of resistance, translating ideas of strength, acceptance, and tolerance into increasingly defined silhouettes shaped by industrial materials and rigid construction. Heavy-duty webbing transformed into duchesse satin, winged collars, and recycled-nylon millefoglie exoskeletons sharpened Owens’ contrasts between control and release, marking an evolution in his protest language without abandoning its underlying purpose.
Creative Director: Rick Owens
House: Rick Owens
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Reviewed by: Angela Baidoo
The Impression Review Score by Kenneth Richard: 9.1
View the Full Collection
Rick Owens is a man with a message. For his men’s show in June titled ‘Stone’ (also chosen for this season), he referred to our collective paralysis as a society in the face of a daily barrage of negative news that inches us ever closer to dystopia.
For spring 2027, the multiple ways the word stone can be interpreted was explored further. The most significant of which was ‘Elegant Stoicism.’ A radical notion at a time when the encroaching climate impact of AI and advancement of right-wing politics would suggest we rage against the machine. Owens sees something noble in choosing to focus only on what we can change and accept what we cannot.
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
In previous seasons Owens has meditated on love, beauty, and diversity in ‘Temple,’ escaping the judgement of his childhood home town in ‘Porterville,’ and an outsized act of inclusion in ‘Hollywood’ that saw the designer shift from the intimacy of his home back to the brand’s metaphorical home of the Palais de Tokyo. In his clothes and in the characters he welcomes into his orbit there remains an unreserved amount of tolerance for those that society might otherwise judge, which is where the second implication comes in, in the way stone-throwing at the ‘Other’ is Owens unapologetic Cause Célèbre.
Key characteristics of the natural material is strength and durability. Traits that inspired the designer to utilise heavy-duty webbing – typically used to transport shipping crates – refashioned into a heavyweight duchesse satin. This caused the opening set of looks (floor-length gowns for all intents and purposes) to take on a rigidity that was only broken by vertical seams and represented the aforementioned elegantly stoic in its purest form. The collection then flowed into dresses and tunics that were freed from structural control and became a metaphor for letting go.
The evil and the angelic were also doing battle on the runway. The former through the pentagram symbol that the designer has used throughout his work as his ‘little protest’ against intolerance and the demonising of others. While cropped jackets were finished with winged (angel-like) collars. In his closing looks, exoskeletons were decorated in frothy tulle and his previous seasons millefoglie technique, that was rendered in rubber last fall,and had now been updated in recycled nylon that took over 45-hours to complete, were a way to show how systems of control can be broken, if even if they appear set in stone.
THE WRAP UP
With an acceptance of the stoic as an equally valid form of protest, the superfluous was stripped away. The outlines of silhouettes became more defined, the use of industrial materials to create ever-more rigid structures more over-arching, and the contrast between the sumptuous and the sharp even more pronounced.
This new focus for Rick Owens may at first appear like a departure from his usual forms of protest, yet it is not a move towards detachment but a call to approach life with an open heart.
