“Expressing our individuality is great but sometimes we need to embrace our commonalities, especially in the face of the peak intolerance we are experiencing in the world right now,” wrote Rick Owens in the show notes for this latest SS25 collection that showed, as always, at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. This collection was an extension of the one we saw in June for Men’s SS25, yet where last season was titled Porterville, after the “judgemental town” Owens escaped from, this season was titled Hollywood, a tribute to the “boulevard of vice” he calls home.

After staging a series of intimate shows in his atelier last year, Rick is now openly regretful at the “act of exclusion” he committed. His brand has always been about embracing everyone, not limited guestlists, so he once again called on all the fashion schools in Paris to make up the bulk of the casting of this show. The result was an incredibly diverse catwalk of weird and wonderful models that genuinely matched the odd creations they were wearing. As is customary, smoke machines created a rich fog that swept across the venue, while above, figures in black cloaks threw rose petals from the roof of the Palais de Tokyo.

The clothing this season was mostly in black and dirty gold. Boots looked uncannily like leg splints, what Rick calls “shin cargopacks”, and headdresses referenced ancient civilisations. A number of the looks were leather that was made to look like cracked paint, like the surface of a canvas, while knit gowns were rendered in merino wool. The gold looks were covered in a “megacrust” coating and the black charmeuse robes were designed by one of Rick’s closest collaborators, Dafne Balatsos, who has been working at the brand for 25 years.