The Rick Owens brand was launched in 1994 and immediately established itself as a new conceptual brand. Rick Owens himself grew up in California and studied at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. In 2003 Rick became Creative Director of the French fur house Revillon and has since settled in Paris. Rick Owens’ aesthetic is shaped by black and white Hollywood movies, the punk underground of the 1980s, grunge and glamour of the 1990s.
Meaning and history
One of the main reasons why Rick Owens has become popular is his unique and inimitable style. Owens is known for his experimental approach to fashion, incorporating bold and unexpected ideas into his collections. He often uses monochromatic colors, rough textures, and unconventional silhouettes, creating designs that deviate from traditional ideas of fashion.
Rick Owens graduated from Otis College of Art and Design with a degree in drawing. This led to him making patterns for designers who semi-legally sewed designer clothes. It was an ironic start to his career in fashion, as he has now become one of the most iconic designers of his generation.
In 1994, Rick started his label, selling his creations exclusively to Charles Gallay. Gallay ran what was the most avant-garde boutique in L.A. at the time, becoming number one in avant-garde fashion sales, the first to launch the Mugler and Margiela collaboration.
In 2001, Vogue editor Anna Wintour became interested in Rick Owens’ products, putting Kate Moss in a leather jacket on the cover of the magazine and sponsoring the designer’s presentation at New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2002. A year later, Owens and his eponymous brand moved to Paris.
The clothing brand Rick Owens is very different from other luxury brands. His style is sometimes called “secret style”, and critics refer to the style as “grunge”. But Rick himself says, “that I give to the created thing, the effect of worn and worn out”. The designer often uses expensive materials in his collections, including sable and chinchilla fur.
Rick Owens’s collaborations with Adidas, Birkenstock, and Eastpack can be highlighted. And in 2020, the Moncler x Rick Owens collaboration was released, which, in addition to clothes and shoes, included a special customizable bus.
What is Rick Owens?
Rick Owens is a cult American fashion brand founded in the mid-1990s. The project became famous for its asymmetrical dresses, tight T-shirts, and leather jackets. Its style is a combination of grunge and glamor. The brand carries an avant-garde and dark aesthetic.
In terms of visual identity, Rick Owens follows the same dark aesthetic, which can be seen in each garment of the designer’s collections. Despite the simplicity of composition — it’s just the name of the label — the badge looks very avant-garde.
1994 – Today
The black lettering on a white background — is all you can see on the logo of the iconic fashion brand, Rick Owens. The inscription is just the name of the designer, written in a classy recognizable cursive font, repeating the Owens’ signature. There is something gothic in the lines of the characters, and at the same time, you can feel the progressiveness and uniqueness in the thicker vertical bars, and the width and inclination of the letters.
The official logo is just the inscription, but the designer of the brand often uses a pentagram symbol in his collections. This emphasizes the “dark side” of the brand and the vision of Rick Owens.
Font and color
The signature of the head designer from the primary logo of the Rick Owens brand is written in a custom cursive typeface, which does not have any commercial analogs but has something slightly similar to such fonts as Charme Com Roman, or Monoment Thin.
The color palette of the Rick Owens logo is quite predictably black-and-white. There could be no other options when knowing the philosophy and recognizable style of the designer. Almost all Rick Owens collections have black as the main color.
