Rick Owens Abito- Wrap Dress

Crepe is not a fibre, it is a construction. The yarns are twisted hard before weaving, and when the finished cloth is relaxed those over-twisted yarns contract, which produces the faintly grained, matte surface and the particular density that makes crepe fall the way it does. It is heavier than it looks and it hangs in vertical folds rather than clinging, which is the reason it has been the fabric of choice for a draped dress for a century.

Here it is woven from acetate and silk. Acetate carries the fluid weight and the low lustre, silk brings the strength and the depth of colour, and the blend produces a cloth with more body than a silk crepe and more life than an acetate one alone. In a dress that relies on drape and on a self-tie for its entire structure, that body is doing all the work.

The flared sleeve is the detail that dates it correctly, which is to say not at all. It is a shape that has been in the house's vocabulary for a very long time, and on a long-sleeved midi it keeps the whole garment from reading as sombre.

There are a great many black dresses. We bought this one because it is a genuinely serious cloth in a shape that can be worn to a dinner and then to a funeral and then to a gallery opening without ever being the same dress twice, and because the self-tie means it fits a range of bodies honestly rather than approximately.

Sixty-four percent acetate and thirty-six percent silk, woven as a crepe. Made in Italy, in Black. Long sleeves with a flare, draped body, self-tie closure, midi length.

A self-tie wrap is adjustable through the waist and fixed at the shoulder, so the shoulder is the fit to judge. Crepe has essentially no stretch, which means the tie is the only adjustment there is. The weight of the cloth means it hangs close to the body without clinging to it.

With a heel for the evening and a flat boot in the day, and very little else. A cloth with this much drape does not want a belt or a stiff jacket over it. A long coat, open, is the correct outer layer.

Acetate and silk together are a dry-clean cloth in practice, and acetate in particular is sensitive to heat and to solvents, so it should be pressed cool and through a cloth if at all. Do not attempt to remove a mark at home; acetate water-spots. Our care guidance covers the general principles.

We would point to the Abito Wrap Dress in cupro, the Abito - Taco Gown, and the Calf Bias Skirt in the same acetate and silk family. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.