Rick Owens: Temple of Love at Palais Galliera

The Palais Galliera, Paris’s fashion museum, has opened its doors to a designer who has built an empire on shadow, radical honesty and sculptural beauty. Rick Owens: Temple of Love, on show until 4 January 2026, is the first major Paris retrospective dedicated to the American-born designer whose work has shifted contemporary fashion far beyond the commercial and into the realm of myth, ritual and brutalist poetry.

SS19 Babel men’s fitting, Palais Bourbon, Paris, 19 June 2018 © owenscorp

Born in California in 1961, Owens began as a pattern-cutter on Hollywood Boulevard before launching his label in 1992. From the start, he embraced a raw, outsider aesthetic that is underground in attitude yet classically disciplined in construction. Limited resources pushed him toward reclaimed and salvaged materials early on: military bags became dresses, army blankets were reimagined as outerwear, and washed leather solidified his reputation. His language has always been stark—black, bone, and his now-iconic grey shade, "dust."...

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Image Credits:

Lead: Terry-Ann, Paris, 2002. © Rick Owens

All further images as credited in photo captions.