In which I explored the path that lead me to Rick Owens

The first few years when I began discovering the importance of fashion as a means of self-expression, it coincided with my days as an amateur musician. I used to play the drums a long time ago for quite a number of years, and like any typical head-banging rocker/metalhead my uniform was mostly black, with lots of menacing accessories and band t-shirts. I still wear my band shirts and biker boots but the studs and cuffs were long gone.

In my late teens, fashion slowly creeped into my life to take over the passion I had for music as I was doing a short, intense stint for a couple of magazines. All of a sudden I found myself veering off a tangent and experimenting with vintage clothes. Moving to Melbourne afterwards fuelled the phase further as it is one of the best cities in the world for thrifting. Mind you even when I was sporting floral tea dresses I’d be pairing them with biker boots. I was already aware of high fashion but never really understood it until the day I bought my first pair of Stella Mccartney boots off Ebay.

As the fashion industry slowly opened up to the outside world, a clueless me peered in to see what the hoolabaloo was about. I was ogling at wondrous monolithic heels on JakandJill, Style.com became a bit of a daily read as I try to know more about the industry beyond the common household names such as Prada and Gucci, and bam! I found myself gaping at Rick Owens for the first time ever.

I remembered it was the FW2008 show, the beautiful ‘Stag’ collection which is still one of his best til this very day. Before Rick, I never knew such powerful yet feminine aesthetic could exist in fashion. I had the impression that every designer made beautiful clothes like Lanvin, Valentino, Versace etc, but nothing so alien and fantasy-like. Something about looking like a futuristic Amazonian soldier appealed so strongly to me that I’ve never looked back since. From there I discovered the other side of fashion, the world where Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto sit on the thrones.

So that was the ‘how’ I get to my choice of aesthetics. In the next post I’ll continue with the ‘why’ this particular aesthetic resonates strongly with me, and why I choose to put up with the unsavoury reactions I’ve received in a conservative society like Singapore . In the meantime, I would love to know how YOU, my fellow fashion enthusiasts, arrive at your chosen state of dress. As they say, sharing is caring.

Here is the beautiful jacket made by Pedro Korshi which I wore to an opening party of a bar in town.