PARIS - Avant-garde romantic Rick Owens is always full of surprises.
This fall-winter 2013-14, it came in the form of what Owens called "wedding cake" stitching alongside billowing-sleeved Samurai silhouettes, and models with wild, Wagnerian hair.
The Gothic edge to much of Owen's bichrome repertoire should not fool anyone: What he does is always genuinely subtle.
Here in Paris, there were plays on form and proportion.
Oversize white tunics and black fabric layers seem haphazard — but were in fact delivered delicately, with soft architecture: the first look's white hanging robe frames the sectioned, column silhouette.
Elsewhere, collars — like flaccid marzipan in celebratory cakes — unfurled down from the neck; while a few white stitches, that he used sparingly, succeeded in dominating and defining whole looks in black.
And only someone as talented as Owens can make duffel coats beautiful — seen here, at the warehouse show, with oversize toggles that hung like shells with dynamic movement.
"This collection was a celebration of some of my favourite things," Owens said.
By the applause he got, it seems he's not alone.
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Thomas Adamson can be followed at http://Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP
