“Everything I do is completely selfish,” says Rick Owens about his new Adidas collaboration, which is the latest in his off-and-on relationship with the athleticwear mega-brand. “It’s always about me and what I need or what I want to see out in the world.”
Owens is beaming in from Claridge’s hotel in London, where he was delayed because he had trouble connecting to Wi-Fi. He’s there because his longtime partner Michèle Lamy is a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race. When he does appear on my screen, his face is all sharp angles framed by his signature jet-black hair parted down the middle and hanging pin straight; his nails are painted (black, of course) and on his long, equine nose is perched a pair of oversized, architectural glasses.
Owens is much like you: he suddenly knows a lot of runners. In fact, many of them are part of his “family,” a phrase he lovingly uses to describe those who work with him or are fans of the brand he’s nurtured for the better part of three decades. “So when I see them suit up and put on a branded trainer that’s not ours, it just feels like, ‘oh, we’ve got a hole.’ I mean, this is the hole that we need to fill.”
Photo: KRISTINA NAGEL/OWENSCORP
Photo: KRISTINA NAGEL/OWENSCORP
So Owens is back at it with Adidas, this time leveraging their springblade technology, a series of futuristic blades at the sole of the shoe. Owens has applied them to a gaiter-like boot and runner, and they have a characteristic futuristic, avant-garde look. “Having the opportunity to use somebody else’s technology—when they’re the best at what they do—and to be able to make runners … and to be able to get my team out of their other branded fucking sneakers and into ours, that was my motivation,” Owens said with his usual candor. “And we’re able to do it in a way that everybody can engage.”
The shoes were first revealed back in June during Owens’s runway show for the spring 2027 collection, and their dramatic, Brutalist silhouette was the perfect complement to his lean, somewhat regal ready-to-wear designs. It borrowed from his existing “Taco” series, named so as it’s essentially a folded piece of fabric over the foot, yielding a deflated bag shape. “The crumpled volume feels careless and opulent at the same time,” Owens said, before adding, “at the same time, I’m half-Mexican and love tacos.”
Photo: KRISTINA NAGEL/OWENSCORP
Indeed, the shoes were just a small part of the larger Adidas collaboration, which included ready-to-wear, like sweeping hooded capes, tracksuit pants in lean and oversized silhouettes, sharp-shouldered sleeveless tunics, and jackets and bodysuits that were inflated using internal fans. The result was a mix between those blow-up Halloween costumes and what happens to Violet Beauregarde when she turns into a blueberry in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “I always think about how can I do a runway show that is impactful without being wasteful,” Owens said. “Without building sets that are going to be knocked down and thrown away. That’s wasteful.”
“The idea of using air and garments just fits into that,” he continued. “It’s something so pure and simple—and blending technology with something so naive, there was such charm in that. Inflated garments have been around for a long time. I mean, the Japanese workers have been using them for a long time, but then Adidas took it up, I don’t know, like 20 years ago or something. But then I found that in their archives, and so I thought, ‘Well, that’s timely.’”
Photo: Courtesy of Owenscorp
Photo: Courtesy of Owenscorp
Photo: Courtesy of Owenscorp
And, yes, Rick-heads, those inflatable pieces will be produced for purchase. “I never wanted my runways to be an impossible dream,” he says. “In the old days, you would see runway shows with these women as these fantastic Thanksgiving Day parade floats, just these huge concoctions, and then the designer would come out at the end in jeans and a T-shirt. It deflated everything to me! It told me that the designer doesn’t believe in what he’s doing, and he’s not living it. It’s like saving your china for Sunday, or for special occasions. I want to be able to make stuff that people can have access to, and that is part of their everyday lives. So yeah, sure, there’s theater and exaggeration in what I do, but it’s connected to real life or my perception of it, which is more exaggerated than a lot of people, granted, but it’s for sale.”
While Owens is, let’s say, skeptical of the proliferation of collaborations—“If I see another collab, I’m going to roll my eyes until I fall over,” he said—the reason his with Adidas works is that they clearly give him the creative freedom to do as he pleases and it comes from a real place. It’s no big secret that Owens, with his lean physique and his at-home gym, is somewhat obsessed with working out. “When I changed my body in my 30s, when I took steroids, and started working out, it satisfied any kind of vanity the clothes would have been for. It was so much more profound than putting on an outfit. It was changing your entire bone structure. It was changing the foundation that the clothes were going to be on.”
Photo: KRISTINA NAGEL/OWENSCORP
Photo: KRISTINA NAGEL/OWENSCORP
Today his go-to gym outfit is pretty simple though—baggy shorts and thin T-shirts, and, when he’s traveling, he’ll often just wear hotel slippers. “I don’t really wear sneakers,” he says. “I’m just always in platforms.” Gym shoes, he says, take up too much room in his carry-on.
“So with Adidas, that’s my next step—to make a good workout gym shoe,” he said. “Super light and flat.”
Rick Owens for Adidas springblade shoes will range from $590 to $850 and will be available for purchase on November 17th at adidas.com, rickowens.eu, and select retailers.
