The streets were scouted. The fashion schools were emptied. The gazar was unfurled. The skaters were evicted. And Rick Owens’ Spring/Summer ’25 men’s collection processed momentously around the courtyard of the 1937 Palais de Tokyo— twice—to a very extended remix of the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th.
In the description on his YouTube channel, Owens cites as inspiration his own youthful flight to Hollywood Boulevard, Jack Smith & Kenneth Anger, and “THE LOST HOLLYWOOD OF PRE-CODE BLACK AND WHITE BIBLICAL EPICS, MIXING ART DECO, LURID SIN AND REDEEMING MORALITY.”
Which sounds and looks like Cecil B. DeMille’s original 1923 version of The Ten Commandments, with better costumes.
And, ngl, it also sounds and looks a lot like Intolerance (1916), D.W. Griffith’s unwieldy and obsequious sequel to his breakout klanfic hit, The Birth of A Nation (1915), with much better costumes.
The creation of Griffith’s spectacle, from the cast of thousands to the mammoth set built on Hollywood & Sunset, was a centerpiece of Anger’s book, Hollywood Babylon.
“EXPRESSING OUR INDIVIDUALITY IS GREAT BUT SOMETIMES EXPRESSING OUR UNITY AND RELIANCE ON EACH OTHER IS A GOOD THING TO REMEMBER TOO… ESPECIALLY IN THE FACE OF THE PEAK INTOLERANCE WE ARE EXPERIENCING IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW…” also wrote Owens.
I am not really sure how the master’s spectacularly propagandistic tools are going to dismantle his ideological house. But maybe it’s the show’s second lap, where each model walks again solo. I do want one of those jackets, though.