It was a pulsating scene at Rick Owens’s newest womenswear presentation in Paris on Thursday, as fashions wielded handheld, gold-plated fog machines down the runway like post-apocalyptic thuribles, dispersing scented clouds via the Palais de Tokyo. However wrapped up in all that brutalist alchemy was one thing novel: the perfume anointing the room, the present notes revealed, is from an upcoming collaboration between the designer and the cerebral Australian skincare-beauty model Aesop. The 2 firms, in line with an Aesop press launch, discovered kinship of their steadfast sensibilities: “What may first seem a contradiction is quickly revealed as a narrative of shared philosophies—a want for serenity, a dedication to simplicity and an appreciation of thoughtful, nonconformist design.”
However this “assembly of uncompromising minds” will not be with out a precedent of admiration: Anecdotally, Rick has been candid about his love for Aesop merchandise for years. Again in 2013, the designer instructed Harper’s Bazaar he prefers “Aesop for shampoos and moisturizers as a result of it’s the one packaging I like. I’d use lard if it got here in a reasonably bottle.” In 2017, the New York Times revealed that Owens “emits the scrumptious odor of Aesop face cream,” and a 2021 Vogue photoshoot of his Venice residence exhibited a toilet filled with telltale amber dispensers. Ever wash your palms at a Rick Owens showroom? There’s a great wager you walked away smelling particularly earthy and/or herbaceous.
“I’m not certain if it was my physique responding positively to the alchemy of the unguents they produce or my head responding to the quiet and delicate aesthetics of their ethos as an organization, however Aesop’s balms represented a soothing temper that I needed to proceed seamlessly all through my residence life and my journey life,” stated Owens, per the Aesop press launch.
In flip, the collaboration facilities on a journey package containing pocket-sized variations of the designer’s favourite Aesop merchandise—coriander seed physique cleanser, Resolute hydrating physique balm, and the basic shampoo and conditioner—that arrives swaddled in a cotton jersey wrap that includes an Owens-coded grosgrain strip, for $190. On Instagram, Owens detailed his intention behind the wrap, conjuring the threadbare T-shirts seen on Sid Vicious and in Satyajit Ray’s movies, the draped jersey attire of French couturier Madame Grès, and the material clinging to the goddess Nike within the Hellenistic statue Winged Victory of Samothrace, which graces the highest of the staircase on the Louvre. He added, in his native caps lock, “A GARLAND OF THIN COTTON JERSEY IS MY VERSION OF A LAUREL WREATH OR OF A SATIN GIFT BOW.”
The journey package additionally debuts the Stoic Eau de Toilette oil, which was developed with perfumer and longtime Aesop collaborator Barnabé Fillion to distill the manufacturers’ dynamic partnership; the perfume’s “spicy aromas of black pepper and coriander seed replicate the radicality of Rick Owens, whereas frankincense and woody notes conjure the equanimous spirit of Aesop,” all tied off with a binding notice of patchouli. There are additionally Stoic-scented candles housed in ceramic vessels impressed by the sculptures of modernist Constantin Brancusi and Dadaist Hans Arp, accessible in three sizes.
Whereas Owens has lent his monastically freaky-deaky edge to plenty of attire collaborations through the years (together with Birkenstock, Moncler, Dr. Martens, and Converse), within the case of Aesop and Rick Owens, wearable parts present some conceptual concord. The jersey wrap could be repurposed as a wrist-wrap or bandana, and the Stoic oil could be utilized to an accompanying strand of porous ceramic beads, conceived by the designer as a “reassuring amulet” to be worn as a bracelet or stowed inside a journey bag. Scent turns into a grounding ritual—your belongings can nonetheless odor acquainted even while you’re removed from residence.
The gathering launches in the present day, March 21, and is on the market on Aesop’s website along with choose Aesop and Rick Owens shops.
