Rick Owens Collage T-Shirt

The name is doing accurate work for once. This is built as a collage: panels meeting at blunt points across the body rather than resolving into the smooth seams a shirt normally has, so the construction is the pattern and there is no decoration anywhere on it. Because the garment is see-through, every one of those seams is visible as a line, and the piece reads as drawing rather than as clothing.

The material choice compounds it. The body and yoke are nylon, the sleeves are silk, and the two are not transparent in the same way. Nylon is transparent flatly and evenly and holds a hard edge at a seam. Silk is transparent with a slight movement to it and softens at the edge. Wearing both at once means the arms and the torso read differently even where nothing else has changed, and the difference is only obvious when the wearer moves.

Below-waist length, so the lines run past the natural break of the body rather than stopping at it.

Transparency is easy to do badly and this is the version we would defend. The reason is that the see-through is not the idea, it is the means: it exists so that the seaming can be read, and without it the construction would be invisible. That is a real design argument rather than an effect. It was also the only piece we knew immediately how to show when it arrived, which usually tells us something.

Transparency and visible seaming run through the women's collections here, and the Collage is the piece where the two are the same decision.

Made in Italy, in black. Nylon body with a nylon yoke and silk sleeves. See-through, cut below the waist, with panels meeting at blunt points throughout.

Cut below the waist and not close to the body, so it reads as a layer even when it is worn alone. Nylon jersey has more spring and less drape than silk, so the torso holds a shape while the sleeves move, which is a real and visible difference on the body. There is nothing in this garment to hide a base layer, so plan the layer.

Over the Basic Rib Tank or a cropped tee, with the base layer chosen deliberately because it is going to be seen. Over black. Under a leather outershirt if you want only the sleeves showing.

Mixed fibres in a transparent garment, which is the hardest care case there is: the silk sleeves and the nylon body do not want the same treatment. Take it to a cleaner rather than washing it at home, and keep it away from heat. Our care guidance covers the general ground.

For silk transparency, the Jumbo Tabard Top. For cotton transparency, the Cropped Outershirt in organdy. Underneath it, the Basic Rib Tank. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.