Rick Owens Wishbone Halter T – Cardinal Red

The whole garment is one idea taken past the point where most makers would stop. A halter with a V neck is ordinary. Extending the collar ruffles until they drape down each side of the body rather than finishing at the neckline is not, and the length is what turns a detail into the silhouette. The ruffles fall as two vertical lines and the eye follows them past the waist, which is what the name is pointing at.

The material split is the detail worth knowing. The body is cotton; the ruffles are silk. Silk is lighter and more fluid than cotton jersey and has a different response to movement, so the ruffles travel and settle while the body stays put. Making them in the same cotton would have produced two heavy panels hanging still. This is a small decision that the garment entirely depends on.

The colour

Cardinal red is a deep, blue-shifted red with no orange in it, and it is one of only two or three colours this house uses at full strength. On a garment whose entire subject is a long fall of cloth, the colour does something the black version cannot: it makes the ruffles legible from a distance, so the shape that is a shadow in black is a line in red.

Ruffles are an easy thing to get wrong and we do not carry many. This one earns its place because the proportion is extreme enough to be a decision rather than a decoration, and because the silk-on-cotton choice shows someone thought about how it would move rather than how it would photograph.

The long fall of fabric from a neckline is a shape this house has returned to across seasons, usually in black and usually with the drape doing all the structural work.

One hundred percent cotton with silk detail, made in Italy. Halter with a V neckline and extended collar ruffles that drape down each side.

Halter construction puts the weight on the back of the neck, so the fit at the shoulder is what determines whether it sits correctly and there is nothing at the shoulder seam to adjust it. Cotton jersey has some give and will relax slightly through the body. The ruffles hang free and are unaffected by sizing.

With high-waisted black trousers, so the ruffles have length to fall against and the red is the only colour in the outfit. On its own in summer. A jacket over it stops the ruffles moving, which removes the point of them.

Two fibres with different requirements in one garment, so treat it as the more delicate of the two: hand wash cool or take it out, and dry flat. Silk fades in direct light faster than it wears out. Our care guidance covers silk in more detail.

The same halter in black is the Wishbone Halter T in black. In cardinal red again, the Rib LS T. For the house draped jersey without the ruffles, the Draped Top. Everything we currently hold from Rick Owens is listed together.