September, 26th, 2014

PARIS | PRINTEMPS ÉTÉ 2015 | RICK OWENS
L’APRÉS-MIDI D’VN FAVNE. ACTE II.

Symbolists were interested in engaging their audience, stimulating their imagination by forcing them to find meaning in random.

“L’après-midi d’un faune” – “The Afternoon of a Faun” – is an Églogue by the French poet and critic Stéphane Mallarmé. Paul Valéry considered it to be the greatest poem – written between 1865 and 1867 – in French literature. It describes the sensual experiences of a faun who has just woken up from his afternoon sleep and discusses his encounters with several nymphs during the morning in a dreamlike monologue.

Following his MODE MASCULINE musings of Spring Summer 2015 to create a sense of timelessness, Rick Owens has designed the Nymphs to the Faun, in unusual satin and nylon – MA-1, drapés, and long tunics -scattering the claims of the individual. Inflaming lust, Rick Owens heightens the mental perversion with his muse, in BDSM underwear’s and body language à la John Cranko, choreographer with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet.

Mallarmé’s poem formed the inspiration for the orchestral work Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune by Claude Debussy and the ballets Afternoon of a Faun by Vaslav Nijinsky, Jerome Robbins and Tim Rushton.

The Debussy and Njinsky works would be of great significance in the development of Modernism in the arts.

Rick Owens has proved convincingly that his menswear and womenswear Spring Summer 2015 merit a pause to reflect on how Modernism is Art appliqué in fashion. The whole collection is in an act of desperation, yet a conviction of hope. Poetry fashions admiringly.

L’APRÈS-MIDI D’VN FAVNE

LE FAVNE

Ces nymphes, je les veux perpétuer.

Si clair,
Leur incarnat léger qu’il voltige dans l’air
Assoupi de sommeils touffus.

Aimai-je un rêve?

Stéphane Mallarmé – Nouvelle Revue française, 1914
(8e éd.) (pp. 71-80).

Photos by GORUNWAY.COM | L’ÉDITOR