Dezeen Magazine

Rick Owens opens first Los Angeles store in 1920s ribbon factory

Fashion designer Rick Owens has opened his first store in Los Angeles on North La Brea avenue – installing architectural elements influenced by a legendary filmmaker within a former industrial space (+ slideshow).

Rick Owens' first store in Los Angeles, USA

Together with architect Anna Tumaini, who he has worked with for the past nine years on stores and personal projects, the designer turned the abandoned 450-square-metre factory into a space that Hollywood founding father and The Ten Commandments director Cecil B Demille could have used as a set.

Rick Owens' first store in Los Angeles, USA

"My goal was to create something Cecil B Demille worthy using the architectural vocabulary we have built up together over all this time," said Owens.

Rick Owens' first store in Los Angeles, USA

Discreetly hidden behind a concrete wall, the store is just down the street from the Plaza Salon bar, a Mexican drag venue where Owens said he spent "a lot of late, boozy nights 20 years ago".

Rick Owens' first store in Los Angeles, USA

Inside, the high ceilings are supported by giant darkly-coloured angular beams – along with a "fog wall" that has become a signature feature within the brand's stores.

"Our signature fog wall took years for us to perfect," Owens said. "It's basically a shallow glass tank, covering a wall from floor to ceiling, filled with a billowing ejaculation of fog every five minutes."

Rick Owens' first store in Los Angeles, USA

Owen's abstract version of a swimming pool is situated in the centre of the store – manifesting as a floor-to-ceiling tank that releases bubbles one by one in a "tranquillising" motion.

Rick Owens' first store in Los Angeles, USA

The American fashion designer transferred his typically monochromatic colour palette into the store's design using references from religious films.

"Epic biblical movies were the first idea of exoticism I could cling to when I was growing up and have influenced everything I do, doomed heroic purity in black and grey draped robes in huge, dusty marble temples," Owens said.

Rick Owens' first store in Los Angeles, USA

Outside, an open courtyard with high white-coloured walls reflects light into the space throughout the day.

Rick Owens' first store in Los Angeles, USA

Owens launched his label in 1994, and showed his first catwalk collection in 2002. As well as a long-standing collaboration with Adidas, the fashion designer creates furniture pieces, some of which were exhibited at Sebastian+Barquet gallery in London in 2009.

Other recently completed fashion stores includes Christian de Portzamparc and Peter Marino's garment-inspired boutique for Dior in Seoul, with towering white fibreglass panels covering the facade.

Images courtesy of Owenscorp.