Rick Owens Outershirt – Hollywood

Leather is usually asked to look expensive, which means smooth, even, and corrected until the animal has been edited out of it. This does the opposite. The lamb here is blistered, worked so the surface rises and falls unevenly across the panel, and because the treatment responds to the hide rather than overriding it, no two of these are the same garment. That is the point of the finish, not a tolerance we are apologising for.

Cutting it as a shirt is the second decision, and the more interesting one. A leather jacket announces itself. A leather shirt does not, because the pattern underneath is shirt pattern: a classic collar, a snap placket down the centre front, two square chest pockets with beveled flaps, snap cuffs, and double topstitching holding it together. Hip length, boxy through the body. There is a cotton webbing strap with a rivet across the back yoke, which is a detail that has followed this house through a lot of seasons and does no structural work at all.

The result behaves like a shirt and weighs like outerwear, which is a genuinely useful thing to own and almost nobody makes.

We wanted one leather piece in the store that a person would actually reach for on a Tuesday, and the jackets do not do that job. This does. It goes over a tee and under a coat, it is warm enough for a Santa Fe evening in three seasons out of four, and it does not require the wearer to have decided to be someone. It is also the object we reach for first with a customer who wants to understand what this house does with a material. The blistering is not decoration. It is an argument about surface, and you can hold it in your hand.

Leather is where Rick Owens started and where the house's technical reputation still sits, and the blistered treatments are the most recognisable thing it does with a hide.

One hundred percent lamb leather, made in Italy, in black. The surface is blistered, so texture varies across the garment and between garments. Hip length, boxy fit, classic collar, centre front snap placket, two chest pockets with beveled flaps, snap cuffs, beveled side seams, double topstitching, and a cotton webbing strap with rivet detail across the back yoke.

Boxy is accurate. This is cut with room through the chest and is not a garment that follows the body, so it takes a tee or a fine knit underneath comfortably and will not close over a heavy sweater. Lamb is the softest and most fluid of the common garment leathers, so it drapes from the shoulder rather than standing away from it, and it will soften further and take a shape from the wearer over the first season. It reads shorter than a jacket because it is shorter than a jacket. We would rather you tried this one on than worked from a size chart, and we do not hold measurements for it.

Over a plain tee with black trousers is the whole case and needs no help. Over a lightweight knit when it turns. It sits comfortably under a longer coat because it has no jacket bulk in the shoulder, which is what most leather cannot do.

Leather does not get washed and does not go near direct heat, which includes a radiator, a car dashboard, and the inside of a plastic garment bag. Hang it on a broad hanger, let it air after wearing, and take it to a leather specialist rather than a conventional dry cleaner if it ever needs attention. We would rather talk through conditioning with you directly than publish a schedule, because the right answer depends on the hide and on how the piece is being worn. Our care guidance covers the general ground.

For the same idea in a firmer hide, the F/W 25 Outershirt in calf leather. For the shirt pattern without the leather, the Cropped Outershirt in cotton organdy. The Double LS T is what goes underneath it more often than anything else. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.