Rick Owens SS26 Avant Garde Menswear Collection TEMPLE & TEMPLE OF LOVE Retrospective Exhibition
Last night, amid the grandeur of Paris Fashion Week Men’s Spring/Summer 2026, Rick Owens delivered an unforgettable spectacle: “Temple of Love”, his wildly inventive SS26 show staged at the Palais de Tokyo fountain. More than a fashion event, it was a powerful performance—a baptism, a ritual, an homage to legacy.
A Baptismal Spectacle & A Retrospective in Motion
Models navigated a towering scaffold above the water, descending into the fountain’s pool for a dramatic immersion—naked or leather-clad, dripping and drenched—before ascending once more in a visceral display of rebirth and resilience. This elaborate finale inverted the runway into a ritual, echoing Owens’s narratives of decline, mortality, and transformation.
“Temple of Love” acted as both a live presentation and a primer for his Palais Galliera retrospective exhibit. The show blurred the lines between runway and museum: the same themes of brutalist furniture, sculptural boots, and down-filled forms from the retrospective also marched down the water-streaked catwalk.
Owens himself acknowledged the show’s reflective tone, describing the retrospective as “a meditation on legacy… mortality, decline, and death.” Wallpaper.com asked Rick Owens in an interview why the the theme “of love”:
I felt that love is the best word to put out there. Maybe it’ll help manifest something. People get the impression that I am this dystopian disruptor, and that I am aggressive, but my motivation has always been to be a contrast to the condemning judgment that I experienced in my youth, and that I have declared war on. There have always been creators like me who are cheerfully depraved, and that is my response to all who felt contempt or oppression, and I’m putting the opposite of that out there in my own little way.
Design Language: Brutalism Meets Raw Glamour
- Contrasts in material: raw Tuscan leather, sequins patched on hulking jackets, shredded fabrics, inflatable boots, and Moncler-influenced padded silhouettes
- Nods to apocalypse: models evoked “apocalyptic sailors,” clad in leather and heavy boots, their swim in the pool likened to a post‑disaster migration
- American bluntness x European sophistication: Owens fused gritty LA origins with Parisian polish—think urinal prints and gutted leathers beside sculptural Zack Snyder-like drama
This was no glitzy spectacle—it was densely symbolic. The water ceremony represented cleansing and endurance; the scaffold symbolized ascent, legacy, tradition. It marked Owens’s 50-year creative journey and affirmed his refusal to recede into quiet retirement. Instead, he offered a love manifest—bold, brutal, jubilant.
“Temple of Love” redefined fashion show norms. It was part art performance, part spiritual rite, part retrospective—but most importantly, utterly Rick Owens. With water cascading, scaffolds towering, and models soaked in symbolism, Owens delivered a collective, cathartic moment. This wasn’t about selling garments—it was about declaring identity, love, and legacy in the most dramatic, immersive way possible.
Rick Owens Temple of Love Exhibition
From 28.06.2025 to 04.01.2026 the museum Palais Galliera presents Paris’s first-ever exhibition dedicated to visionary fashion designer Rick Owens. The Rick Owens Temple of Love Exhibition is spanning his journey from early days in Los Angeles to his latest collections, the showcase reflects Owens’s deep-rooted interest in spiritual ritual and symbolism. Drawing inspiration from literary figures like Joris-Karl Huysmans, alongside influences from contemporary art and early 20th-century Hollywood cinema, Owens’s work blends the sacred and the cinematic. Uniquely, the designer has taken on the role of artistic director for the exhibit, collaborating closely with the museum to craft a path that stretches beyond the galleries—extending into the building’s façade and its surrounding gardens.
