Rick Owens Shrimp Skirt

The gathering is at the back, which is the tell. A skirt ruched at the front is decorative and a skirt ruched behind is structural: the gathers pull fabric up and out from the seat, so the silhouette gains volume where the body does not have any, and the hem is thrown out of level as a consequence rather than as a design applied on top. The asymmetric hem here is the result of the ruching, not an addition to it.

That is a considerably more rigorous way to build a skirt than cutting a diagonal hem and gathering it afterwards, and it is the reason this reads as sculpture rather than as a detail.

The elastic waistband is the practical counterweight. A garment doing something this deliberate below needs to be simple to put on, and the whole thing pulls on in one movement.

It is worth knowing what the skirt is made of, because the cloth is what lets the gathers hold their shape. Nylon and viscose are the bulk of it, one giving the knit its strength and the other its weight, and the remaining forty percent is wool and angora in equal parts. Angora at that proportion is not a trace. It is the finest and lightest of the animal fibres in common use, it raises a faint halo on the surface, and it is the reason a skirt carrying this much fabric does not feel heavy in the hand. A blend chosen only for softness would have been the wrong one here. This one was chosen so the folds would fall soft and stay where they were put.

Fawn is a warm pale brown, a good deal softer than the house's usual register, and on a skirt with this much shadow in its folds it shows the gathering in a way black would hide entirely.

We took this for the colour and for the fact that the shape survives being worn. A great many sculptural skirts look extraordinary on a rail and collapse on a body. This one keeps the volume because the gathers are holding it there.

Thirty percent nylon, thirty percent viscose, twenty percent wool, and twenty percent angora. Made in Italy, in Fawn. Ruched at the back, asymmetric hem, elastic waistband.

An elastic waist fits over a range. The ruching sits at the back and adds volume there, which is intentional and should not be sized away. A blend of this kind has give and modest recovery, so the gathers soften with wearing rather than tightening, and the skirt settles into the shape it is going to keep within the first few outings. The hem is asymmetric by construction and cannot be levelled.

With a flat shoe and something close-fitting above, since the volume is at the back and wants a clean line elsewhere. Fawn with black, brown, or cream. It layers over tights in winter, which is how we would wear it.

Twenty percent wool and twenty percent angora make this knitwear as far as care goes, whatever the shape suggests. Hand wash cool with a wool detergent or hand it to a cleaner, dry it flat, and never press the ruching, because the gathering is the garment and an iron takes it out for good. Angora sheds for the first few wearings; that is the fibre rather than a fault, and it stops. Our care guidance on the hair fibres covers the general ground.

For skirts in the same register, the Edfu Skirt, the Gonna - Edfu Skirt, and the Pillar Skirt. There is more on the house on the Rick Owens designer page. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.