Rick Owens' spring/summer 2025 fashion show at Designer features students and staff from

the Palais de Tokyo in Paris took a different take colleges for athletic display with a sci-fi twist at
from his usual dark aesthetic to showcase a sci-fi the Palais de Tokyo
inspired collection featuring a unique blend of Olympic excellence has – understandably – been
athleticism and fashion. The show featured a something of a theme at the menswear fashion
steel structure called the "gymnast bouquet," shows in Paris this week. The latest to platform
with three gymnasts holded by young men in the impressive power of athletes was Rick
shorts and vests. Rather than using professionals, Owens. For his spring/summer 2025 show in the
Owens recruited students and staff from Parisian grounds of the Palais de Tokyo on Thursday, he
fashion colleges, presenting them in 20-model- included what he called a “gymnast bouquet” – a
per-group wearing identical white and ivory steel structure featuring three gymnasts holding
collection. poses, carried by nine young men in shorts and
vests.
The larger venue of the Palais de Tokyo allowed Owens is a designer more usually associated with
Owens to open the show to a wider audience, a gothy, dark aesthetic than the world of sports
reflecting his theme of unity and inclusivity. The so this was a different take on what might be
collection emphasized this theme with symbolic seen at the opening ceremony in a few weeks’
gestures, such as the top gymnast holding a flag time. But the show also had a heartwarming
depicting people holding hands. Owens aimed to story. Rather than professionals, the models here
convey a message of unity amidst global were largely students and staff from fashion
intolerance, highlighting the importance of colleges across Paris.
reliance on each other. If fashion shows typically feature one model at a
time wearing a different outfit, here groups of
The show featured collaborations with various about 20 models reached the runway together,
artists and designers, including choreographer each wearing the same outfit. The black Owens
Ylva Falk and long-time collaborator Dafne usually loves was replaced by an entirely white
Balatsos, who designed the robes, highlighted and ivory collection. With Owens’ otherworldly
Owens' commitment to merging fashion with aesthetic, the effect was slightly sci-fi – especially
meaningful themes. with outfits featuring Cleopatra-like headpieces,
and some models with balaclavas and capes.
. This show comes after two previous collections
shown in the hushed and minimal environs of
Owens’ house. In a statement shared with press,
he said that the bigger space of the Palais de
Tokyo was a reaction. “I felt bad about making
attendance so restricted so this time around I
wanted to welcome everyone,” he wrote. Hence,
asking fashion schools for “men and women who
would like to walk in this white satin army of
love.”.
Owens said the show was about unity: the
gymnast at the top of the bouquet held a flag
with a picture of people holding hands.
“Expressing our individuality is great but
sometimes expressing our unity and reliance on
each other is a good thing to remember too,” he
wrote, “especially in the face of the peak
intolerance we are experiencing in the world
right now.”
Owens is a designer loved by fashion insiders for
the way he practises what he preaches – the fact
that he both designs and wears extreme items
like plexiglass platform boots, for example. In line
with this, a collection about unity was full of
collaborators, all name checked in Owens’
statement.
The gymnastic poses were the work of
choreographer and artist Ylva Falk, who worked
on a show with similar gravity-defying feats in
2015. Robes were made by Dafne Balatsos, who
the designer has worked with for 25 years. And
knitwear was the work of Tanja Vidic, a recent
fashion graduate from Slovenia who, said Owens,
“makes the most imaginative DIY knits I have ever
seen”.