Purple Magazine
— F/W 2013 issue 20
LA Essential
photography by NICOLAS ALAN COPE
All pictures are from Whitewash, powerHouse Books, Brooklyn, New York, 2013
I moved to Paris from Los Angeles 10 years ago and haven’t been back since. But this is exactly how I remember it. Bright, hot, incessant clear light casting blackety-black shadows from Brutalist blocks, which take the history of architecture and silently reduce and contain it, like lunar tombs. Or Aztec temples morphed into foam-core cartoons. This kind of light makes decisions easier, more black and white: good vs. bad; pure vs. impure; aspiration vs. collapse; determined, grim optimism vs. self-indulgent despair. The suggestion of a monolithic old Hollywood black-and-white movie set encourages self-invention and feelings of self-consciousness as you make your way down an imaginary long white staircase. There’s not another living soul around and the spotlight is on you, wiping away any flaws or imperfections: you hallucinate into who you wanna be… Exactly how I remember it…
— RICK OWENS
