Fashion can be about escapism but I have always been interested

In the councils of raiment and remembrance, hear Rick Owens speak with the calm of a maker and the fire of a reformer: “Fashion can be about escapism but I have always been interested in the aspirational side of it—wanting to present the self you hope eventually to become.” In one breath he divides the wardrobe of the soul. On one hanger hangs escapism—the mask that lets us flee ourselves for an evening. On the other hangs aspiration—the mantle that helps us grow toward our truest shape. Owens blesses the second garment: clothing as vow, silhouette as promise, fabric as a roadmap to the person we are laboring to become.

The meaning is double. First, fashion can narcotize, numbing pain with sparkle; but it can also discipline desire, choosing lines and textures that train the body and mind toward integrity—cleaner habits, steadier courage, quieter strength. Second, to present the self you hope to become is not deceit; it is rehearsal. We dress not only to be seen but to be summoned. A boot with backbone, a coat with order, a color with restraint or radiance—these are cues to the inner life. In this elder grammar, garments are scaffolding for character, worn until the soul grows to fit the frame.

As to the origin, the wording appears in established quotation collections and in interviews where Owens explains his credo almost verbatim: fashion may offer escapism, he says, but his own work leans toward aspiration—a way of communicating values before a word is spoken, telegraphing modesty, respect, and order through the cut of a coat or the hush of a palette. This refrain accords with the public record of his philosophy across profiles and conversations: clothes as contemporary ceremony; self-presentation as ethical design.

A story will make the teaching plain. In a city newly arrived to, a young apprentice had only one suit—plain, durable, well tended. Each dawn he polished his shoes and folded his notes, telling himself, “Dress for the work you mean to master.” Months later, mentors remembered him not for brand names but for bearing: he was always “put together,” yes—but more, he carried himself as if entrusted with something weighty. The suit did not lie; it led. What he wore helped him present the self he hoped to become—patient, prepared, and worthy of responsibility.

History bears the same witness in broader strokes. Consider the civil-rights tradition of the Sunday best worn into Monday marches: hats, suits, dresses chosen to assert dignity under threat, clothing as declaration that the wearer would meet hatred with order and resolve. Or recall Bowie and the avant-garde—ensembles that were not costumes to escape into, but prototypes of a freer identity to prototype in public. In each case, fashion served aspiration: not fantasy for its own sake, but rehearsal for a more honest life in common.

Owens’s own houses and runways have long preached this sermon with leather and light: ascetic cuts, monastic rigor, silhouettes that suggest a future self—stoic, tender, unafraid. He has said that the way we dress can “telegraph your character,” communicating a value system before the mouth opens; his shows become rites where self and city are briefly re-ordered by form. The message is consistent: style should not eclipse substance; it should escort it.

What, then, is the rule for our days? First, choose one element of dress as a daily promise—boots that remind you to stand firm, a jacket that cues composure. Second, curate a small uniform for your calling: repeat what supports your purpose; discard what distracts. Third, practice seasonal edits of the closet as you would revisions of the soul—remove what no longer serves the person you are becoming; keep what strengthens courage and courtesy. Fourth, when you do indulge escapism, do it knowingly and briefly; then return to aspiration, for garments are strongest when they gird resolve. Thus you will use fashion not as a mask but as a map, presenting the self you hope to be until, by steady living, you are.