Rick Owens in Paris: the exhibition event that’s shaking up fashion
What if contemporary fashion had finally found its own museum? Far from couture clichés, Rick Owens transforms the Palais Galliera into a sanctuary for black love and transgressive forms.
Temple of Love: more than an exhibition, a declaration
The Palais Galliera, the Parisian temple of fashion, pays tribute to one of its most radical designers: Rick Owens. From June 28, 2025, the Temple of Love exhibition will feature an immersive retrospective, halfway between art installation and aesthetic performance.
Rick Owens has never sought to please. He builds, disturbs, imposes a unique visual language. Deep black, monumental shapes, warrior femininity, troubled masculinity: his vision redefines clothing as a political and spiritual tool.
A unique journey between the sacred and the subversive
From his early days in a Los Angeles atelier to his controversial shows in Paris, Rick Owens spans three decades of uncompromising design. Conceived by the designer himself, the tour deliberately goes beyond the traditional rooms: the outdoor statues are draped in sequined fabrics, while thirty sculptures in raw cement take over the museum gardens. Each element becomes a manifesto.
Inside, over 100 silhouettes drawn from the designer’s personal archives interact with works by Joseph Beuys, Gustave Moreau and Steven Parrino. The whole weaves a web of influences between religious art, Hollywood silent films, queer aesthetics and underground culture.
When fashion becomes political
Rick Owens has never been content with cutting and sewing. He stages gender, questions power, exposes flesh. At a time when fashion shows are often content to celebrate emptiness, his shows break taboos: African-American stepping models, frontal male nudity, overpowering female silhouettes. His fashion speaks, clicks, moves.
Based in Paris since 2003, Owens transforms black into a universal language, and invents a signature gray – “dust”, a blend of dust, memory and tragic elegance.
Michèle Lamy, muse and spectral presence
It’s impossible to talk about Rick Owens without mentioning Michèle Lamy, his partner, muse and lover. Her influence permeates the exhibition, right up to the reconstruction of their Californian bedroom. Intimacy becomes politics, love becomes architecture.
Practical information
📅 Dates: June 28, 2025 to January 4, 2026
📍 Venue: Palais Galliera, 10 avenue Pierre Ier de Serbie, 75116 Paris
🎟️ Prices: €14 (full), €12 (reduced), free for under-18s
🕒 Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm, Friday night until 9pm
📖 Catalogue: Éditions Rizzoli, €49
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