[piano music]
- The idea of wearing Rick with Rick,
was really a part of both of our urgent stories,
where we bought one thing that we really liked individually.
It didn't feel quite right,
and then so we had to buy the other thing
to match with the first item,
and it just kind of snowballed.
And now it's this.
- Between us we have over 200 pieces.
- Hi Vogue.
I'm Fiona.
- And I'm Michael.
- And, we're devoted to collecting the work of Rick Owens.
Michael and I met in 2018,
when I first started really getting into collecting
Rick Owens, actually.
And, I was looking for inspiration on the internet,
and I saw this page called At Men and Rick Owens,
and I was browsing through,
and I saw a picture of him,
and I thought that he was wearing a really cool outfit,
so I followed him and we,
- and here we are,
- and here we are.
I think without Rick Owens we never would've met.
- No
- It has influenced our lives on a really macro level,
but on the day to day, we're normal people I think.
But I do, I guess I do think about him every day,
because every day when I'm getting dressed,
he crosses my mind.
- Do you think about him more than you think about me?
[laughing]
- No, no, no.
This is the first birthday gift
that Michael ever gave to me.
- It is.
- So it's really special,
because I know that this is one of his favorite collections,
and he saw it and wanted me to have it.
- This was one of those items that I wanted to wear,
and couldn't.
And so, I think the next best thing is to buy it for Fiona,
'cause I feel like we have similar tastes,
and I feel like someone should have it,
and I like that it's here.
- When I first started wearing Rick Owens,
I think there was this moment of, I don't know,
maybe transcendence,
where I just felt very comfortable and authentic
in the way that I looked,
and I think it's kind of just grown from there.
This is actually a piece that we love to share.
It's a coat that Michael actually found for both of us.
- It's like a furry mohair thing, just like teased out.
We do borrow each other's clothes,
but this is like joint custody.
- I think what Rick Owens does really well,
is that he's able to execute a really large variety
of expressions of gender,
but not in a way where it's a statement in itself.
It's something that just comes naturally
through the ideas that he wants to express.
- So much of it is like exchangeable,
like we swap clothes whenever we can, whenever it fits.
And, it flows just the same, it looks the same.
We own some identical pieces,
and depending on how you happen to style them,
it's gonna look like whatever you want it to look like.
This was from 2016.
It's the year that Owens Corp was started.
Previously, the factories were sort of owned
by another company,
and he sort of gained full ownership in 2016,
as I understand it.
This one in particular is really interesting.
Half of it has been dipped in honey,
that his wife, Michèle Lamy,
she kept bees on the roof of their house,
and this honey is from those bees.
- Michael is kind of my encyclopedia
when it comes to these things.
I think a lot of the times when I buy things, new and old,
I like to share them with him,
so that he can kind of give me the low down.
- The nerd details.
[piano music]
- I got kicked out of the closet when Fiona moved in.
- Yeah, unfortunately I had to take the bedroom closet,
and I kind of banished Michael into this room.
- Yeah.
Everyone starts with Geobaskets,
the like most identifiable, like cool, thing that he has.
My last pair I wore for seven years,
and they were destroyed and falling apart,
so I finally gave in and bought a new pair.
I think all of my original pieces I have replaced,
because I've worn them so much.
This is sort of the second thing I bought.
Had the shoes,
and they looked bad with all the pants I own,
so I had to get a pair of pants.
Snowball effect.
I think though, this is the like fourth iteration
of these shorts that I have owned.
They are starting to get holes, which I have repaired.
Basically, I will just wear them
until it's too annoying to repair them,
and then I will trade them out, get a new pair.
- When I started owning designer clothing,
I was always very pristine and very careful with it,
up until I met Michael.
And I think that ever since I've met him,
I've also grown to become more okay
with really, really living in my clothing
and wearing my clothes harder,
and just really enjoying the process of the wear and tear.
- This is kind of the Rick starter pack outfit
that I think everyone buys as their first outfit.
Other than the jacket,
everything is like a replacement for something
I bought as my first piece,
but this was my first like full Rick outfit.
The jacket I think I bought a year or two
after I was into Rick.
It was my like holy grail at the time.
I spent months looking for it at a price I could afford.
I was working at a coffee shop.
It was like this like unattainable thing,
and then I finally got it.
Starting a collection on a budget is not easy.
You buy one thing and it, you know,
you've gotta save up for another six months,
before you've like you're anywhere near close
buying another thing.
And I think that it's a very slow start.
It took like a few years of spacing out buying things,
to have like a set wardrobe.
There's this giant cashmere onesie.
- And here it is.
- This thing.
Yeah, so it's made of like quarter inch thick cashmere.
I can wear it when it's below zero, and that's about it.
To go with that,
one of my funnier Rick items,
there's a nun cap.
This is not the specific one from that season,
this is the same sort of vibe.
They were wearing like big nun caps on the stage.
I think part of the reason I really like Rick,
is because he's self-aware and he's a a little funny,
and it's not as like serious
as a lot of the other goth and avant garde designers are.
It's a little goofy,
and I think that that shows through when you're wearing it.
So this is a nice little outfit
for wearing to the grocery store,
or whatever sort of casual event you have going on.
- I do love when you wear this,
although it's not my favorite,
but I think it's important for us to disagree sometimes.
- Yeah, you need a little conflict.
- Yeah. But I do love that thing.
- This is sort of one of the other more extreme things
that I own.
This mask is from spring/summer 2019.
It's not very accessible for kind of a reason.
It's not very easy to see out of,
it's not very easy to breathe out of,
but it's really fun, you know.
And, the cats quite like it too.
As you can see, Oscar is a fan.
These are the Kiss Heels.
They're kind of the like more recent Rick style,
little more glam.
Fiona has three pairs of them.
I have just the one.
But we do go out matching in these a lot,
as embarrassing as that may be.
I like that Rick Owens, and wearing Rick Owens,
kind of challenges other people,
especially in terms of gender.
It's not like why is he wearing heels,
as much as it's like what are those shoes?
But, I also do like the idea
of it like challenging how people think about me.
And I think that it's nice to be
like kind of strange looking,
but then people talk to me
and I'm actually relatively normal.
- Part of this slow growing, painstaking process
of acquiring a collection that is esoteric,
is that at the same time
you're sort of building your own identity around it.
For me at least, I felt like I was coming into myself
the more that my closet and my wardrobe grew.
- I've had a lot of phases, especially with clothing.
This is the one that stuck around the longest.
It doesn't seem like it's going anywhere.
I still like other designers,
and I still like own some other designers,
but it's 95% Rick.
And that's the main thing that I feel like myself in.
- Because Rick Owens has played such a big part
in our lives,
and is the reason that we met,
and you know, obviously it's not the only thing
we have in common, thank God.
But you know,
it is something that we share an interest for,
and share and love for.
I think at this point, it's going to continue.
[piano music]