Rick Owens SS16 Show Featured Women Wearing Other Women As Backpacks

Rick Owens – the designer who introduced the concept of side peen to the world last year – yesterday sent his models down the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week…wearing other models.

Having courted controversy on the runway before, “framing the penis” during a recent men’s show, and enlisting step teams for a memorable women’s outing, Owens was aware that people might only see bondage whereas his intention was “admiring the mystery of what a woman is”.

You might recall Owens equally head-turning SS16 Menswear collection – it’s hard to forget if you saw the photos – where male models walked in smocks cutaway to leave their manhoods on full display.

Relying on the use of straps to evoke strength – not restraint – Owens communicated the idea that this was a show focused on female empowerment.

Another human backpack, courtesy of Rick Owens. He says he was inspired by a “focused vision” that is embodied by “nourishment, sisterhood/motherhood, and regeneration, women raising women” and “women becoming women”.

But, of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinions and interpretations.

However, a few of the more “seasoned” members of the fashion crowd languidly pointed out that Owens was more likely paying homage to a 1993 image by iconic Australian “club kid”, drag entertainer and performance artist Leigh Bowery, called ‘The Birth’. His models hit the runway with other models harnessed onto their bodies, hanging upside-down.