Workshop: Rick Owens’ sculptural patterns

Hosted in the AN/ARCHIVE spaces and aligned with the project’s founding philosophy, the workshop provided an immersive experience into pattern making. Rick Owens garments were displayed throughout the venue, serving as teaching points throughout the day. Led by Ahmad Daher alongside fashion historian and Polimoda faculty member Aurora Fiorentini, the session guided students on a pattern making journey through the extraordinary pieces of Rick Owens. Each ensemble was examined as a case study, with its artistic and historical context explored by Daher and Fiorentini.

The designer’s fascination with art manifests primarily in the silhouettes of his creations. Fiorentini and Daher elaborated that one significant artistic influence is Dorothea Tanning. Born in Galesburg, Illinois in 1910, Tanning was a surrealist artist who lived for over a century. She worked as an illustrator, painter, printmaker, sculptor, and set and costume designer, producing artwork until her death in 2012. During the late 1960s, she crafted sculptures from fabric; voluminous, contorted forms made with textiles from charity shops and stuffed with wool. 

These pieces hauntingly echo human forms and were most famously assembled for the artwork Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 (1970–73), where bodies appear to take over, breaking through the confines of the room. This proved particularly inspirational for Owens, evident in the bulbous soft forms of many of his garments. The installation was also significant for Owens due to its use of soft, diversely textured fabrics in varying hues from pink to grey to brown. The brown wool fabric of the cape exhibited in the workshop, with its softly curved angular shoulders, was greatly admired by the students, who noted its ability to instill a sense of power in whoever wore it.

Numerous other elements of Owens’ garments connect to art history, such as Joseph Beuys’ work How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965), a performance piece in which he covered his head entirely in honey and gold leaf while explaining pictures to a deceased hare. The substantial layer of gold on his skin cracked and deformed with his movement; an effect reproduced on a gown made of denim with a gold foil treatment. The bustier of this dress extends with excess fabric, sewn to form a sharp point, which can be stretched and then retracted to create and remove space, playing with concepts of presence and absence.

The students also investigated the origins of the shape of Owens’ boots, whose bulging and voluminous silhouette has become instantly recognizable and associated with the brand. The design’s origin lies in cave paintings found in Tassili-n-Ajjer, an archaeological site in Algeria. Discovered first in 1910 and subsequently in the 1930s and ’60s, these paintings depict humans engaged in everyday activities, some with an astonishing cone-like structure around the lower part of the leg; a shape immediately reminiscent of Owens’ interpretation of a desert boot.

Following the theoretical analysis of each piece, its references and visual origins, Daher invited students to touch, feel, and try on the garments. This sparked an inquisitive burst of curious energy where questions were posed and discussions ignited. The workshop proceeded with a shoulder construction exercise where participants were instructed to build a shaped and molded shoulder, using moldable clay and cling film, the sculptural shape pattern was first created in clay on the shoulder of the person before being translated into a fabric construction. The students then fashioned their shoulders out of fabric, addressing any structural or compositional challenges encountered along the way.

The workshop offered an immersion into the intricate pattern making of Rick Owens while highlighting the versatility and multifaceted nature of the brand’s patterns. They are not only beautiful and practical but also possess almost infinite shape and wearing possibilities, while referencing pivotal moments in art history, connecting them to a broader humanity. This masterclass epitomizes the ethos of AN/ARCHIVE, a space where students can engage with professionals from the fashion industry for comprehensive, multidimensional study of fashion through physical interaction with garments that hold cultural and historical connections to the world we inhabit today.