The notion of the superhero is one that's come up at several of the menswear runway shows in Paris this week, at Mugler's, Dries Van Noten's and even Jean Paul Gaultier's, with his homage to James Bond. (Super spy = superhero, no?)

But the rugged, lantern-jawed hero -- swooping in with his broad shoulders, muscle-hugging body armor and billowing cape -- is nothing but an empty suit unless he's battling the forces of evil. To be truly super, the superhero needs a worthy super-villain.

Which is why we'll always need Rick Owens and his army of darkness as a counterbalance -- emerging from the swirling smoke at the top of the runway and clomping across our brain stems in heavy boots.

Though the fall-winter 2011 collection was mostly crammed with Owen's usual ouevre -- severe man-skirts, voluminous ponchos, face-obscuring turtlenecks and tightly belted coats -- the designer switched it up in the details department just enough to keep things interesting.

One noteworthy new addition was his take on the duffle coat -- one of the season's more popular outerwear silhouettes -- which included vertically zippered chest pockets (for stowing the fabric toggle straps completely out of sight) and tapered stainless steel toggle buttons that looked more like surgical instruments than garment closures.

Yes, Rick Owens made a duffle coat look dangerous.

That's talent.

-- Adam Tschorn, reporting from Paris

Photos: Looks from the Rick Owens Fall and Winter 2011 menswear runway collection, including the designer's version of the duffle coat (at left), shown on January 20, 2011, during Paris Fashion Week. Credit: Jonas Gustavsson & Peter Stigter / For The Times.

"Avant-garde basics" is how designer Valentino Vettori describes his new collection, IMPROVD, adding, "I didn't want women to have to think about how to put the pieces on. I wanted them to be avant-garde but simple."

Vettori, a 10-year veteran of Diesel’s design team, recently launched the wearable, chic collection with another industry insider, Sam Ben-Avraham, founder of the well-known Atrium boutique in New York and the Project Global Tradeshow.

And while the pared-down edginess of the line renders it infinitely wearable, there's another element to love -- its reasonable prices. Tops start at $60 on the low end, with leather jackets running around $500 on the high end. The collection is available at Madison Et Cie and EM & Co. in Los Angeles.

Accessible pricing "is a must," said Vettori. "It's the base -- the whole point of the brand." As a former showroom owner who imported pricey European lines, "I was seeing all this new avant-garde all the time, and every time I picked up something I liked, it was $2,000. It was ridiculous. You make a raw-edge cut and it automatically has to be expensive? I wanted to position myself as an amazing product at an amazing price for a generation that understands the avant-garde."

The fall collection is full of moody pieces wrought in black and gray -- body-conscious printed dresses, shrunken leather jackets and a kimono-wrapped puffer coat among them.

As for the label's name (pronounced "improved"), Vettori says it's a reference to improving his life and his work. He also likes that it could be misread as "improv-ed." After all, he said, "fashion is improvising."

-- Emili Vesilind

Photo: A look from IMPROVD's fall collection

Ralph Lauren celebrated Evan Lysacek's Olympic gold medal win at the brand’s Robertson flagship Tuesday, following the figure skater’s debut on “Dancing With the Stars” the night before. "Dancing" castmates Buzz Aldrin, Niecy Nash and Bruno Tonioli came to toast Lysacek -- the first American man to win a gold in figure skating in 22 years. 

Lysacek, one of the Olympic athletes who partnered with Polo Ralph Lauren in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, wore a Team USA polo shirt and also autographed customers' Team USA shirts.

Lysacek chatted with All the Rage enthusiastically about "Dancing With the Stars" and fashion.

You're a big fan of Ralph Lauren?

I’ve always loved Polo since I was little. I’ve worn Ralph’s clothes always.

Team USA was extremely honored to wear his designs in Vancouver. Without a doubt the best outfit there, so props to him and his entire company for coming up with an incredible look.
It truly has been an honor to be aligned with this brand for the past year. I hope I can continue to work with them. Ralph Lauren is an American icon as far as fashion is concerned.

PARIS -- Compared to previous seasons, Rick Owens’ collection felt like a breath of fresh air in a mausoleum, a ray of white light stabbing into the darkness. Whatever yin/yang analogy you use, his traditional heavy-handed march of the mutants seemed practically uplifting. Nay, spiritual. 

Instead of monsters and demons garbed in blacker than black, Owens seemed to be sending his version of angels down the runway. Gleaming white trench coats, tailored white square-shouldered jackets that shimmered over camel-colored tunics, even the heavy clodhopper boots looked somehow lighter, the pale brown snakeskin seeming like baked meringue. 

Backstage, the designer waved off any notion of trying to read a kinder, gentler Rick Owens in the catwalk tea leaves. “Yeah, last time I had lots of monsters on the runway,” he said with a shrug. “But I was just in the mood for a nice tailored jacket. The kind I’d like to wear. So that’s what I did.”

Owens' show also served up perhaps my favorite fashion show celebrity sighting of all time. No, it wasn't Kanye West and Amber Rose (who, were indeed, sitting front row), but the bearded gentleman I found myself face to face with as I exited the backstage area: none other than actor Howard Hesseman -- who, despite a lengthy and productive TV career since, will ever be remembered to me as DJ  Dr. Johnny Fever   from the sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati."

He and Owens are old friends, he told me, and he came to support the designer. 

As we parted ways, for the merest of moments, I let my mind wander to what Hesseman's DJ alter-ego would might look like rocking one of those serious, strong-shouldered Rick Owens jackets.

And it made me appreciate the artistry of both men that much more.

-- Adam Tschorn

Rick Owens Fall/Winter 2010 Men's Runway Photo Gallery

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A cloud-like silver lamé dress softly gathered at the back, designed by Rick Owens? That's right, for spring, the Goth stalwart lightened up his dark aesthetic with buoyant shapes and papery thin fabrics.

But first, he opened with a few of the asymmetrical jackets and vests that have given him appeal beyond fashion's avant garde, this time with paper airplane-like folds on the fronts, and angular peaks jutting up from the shoulders. Crisp sleeveless tunics with conical volumes were an interesting progression of his sculptural style, even if they were worn with what can only be described as loincloths that kept getting caught up between the models' legs.

It proved to be a minor distraction; the biggest news was in coats--light-as-air with crinkly flourishes at the collar. And then there were those beguiling, draped lame parachute dresses, catching wind as the models walked, and carrying Owens to a new height.

-- Booth Moore

Photos: Rick Owens' Spring-Summer 2010 runway

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Photo: Rick Owens' Spring-Summer 2010 runway. Photo credit: Peter Stigter and Jonas Gustavsson / For The Times

Edgy Paris-based designer Rick Owens, who started his fashion career in Los Angeles, is now dipping his leather-clad toe into furniture design. WWD reports that the designer has launched a limited-edition furniture collection, which is shown and sold separately from his ready-to-wear.

Currently on display in a show called "Evolution" that runs through September at London's Sebastian + Barquet’s gallery, the rough-hewn decor boasts Owens' signature raw-and-primitive vibe. Deconstructed chairs, sofas, tables and lamps are made from antlers, plywood, marble, shearling and fisher fur (Owens is a huge fur fan, and shearling has been a staple in his collections).

The collection will be sold only in galleries, not stores. Prices start at $2,970 for a wooden bench, topping out at $36,300 for a suede-and-wood sofa.

The designer started making furniture when his lust for avant-garde decor from the legendary likes of Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, Le Corbusier and Robert Mallet-Stevens exceeded his budget.

He did not return a request for comment, but reportedly cringes at the idea of the line being called a "home" collection. Still, he's cognizant of the importance of keeping his brand's vision narrow -- on the runway and in galleries, noting to WWD, “It all has to belong to one universe."

-- Emili Vesilind

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Photos: Rick Owens' Fall 2009 men's runway show

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Photo: Designer Rick Owens and partner Michele. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

 

PARIS -- Rick Owens' sophomore outing at men's fashion week here Friday found the designer easing up a bit from his Fall/Winter show (truthfully there wasn't much room to move in the other direction -- if the collection got any darker and heavier, it would risk collapsing in on itself and create a black hole). There were gauzy, white long-sleeve T-shirts, faded, repurposed denim used to create geometric shapes, and black nylon shirts.

Pieces seemed to have fluidity: A zip-front leather vest paired with a soft-draping fabric hood; a messenger bag strap slung across the chest anchored a cloud of black fabric that resembled something between garbage bag and carbon paper. Zippers curved gracefully; a square white "tail" of fabric fluttered from the rear waistband of pants.

And then there was the footwear, the most memorable of which were eye-catching black-and-white high-top sneakers with leather pieces from shin to toe that make the feet look like suction cups.

Back stage after the show, Owens explained his inspiration. "I call it my all-American collection," he said. 'It's sort of an apology for being such a [jerk]."

"I was quoted in an interview saying American tourists were ruining the Paris landscape with their fanny packs and their man bags, so this collection has leather jackets that have arms that zip off and the jacket becomes a bag."

After slowly sliding my own man bag out of Owen's sight, I asked if there was anything he did differently for this collection.

"Yeah," said the dark prince of Paris Fashion Week. "I used taffeta this time, and I liked the way it turned out."

-- Adam Tschorn

Photos: Looks from Rick Owens' men's Spring/Summer 2010 runway show in Paris on June 26, 2009. Credit: Jonas Gustavsson.

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A slew of L.A.’s best designers, includingGregory Parkinson, Magda Berliner, Katy Rodriguez and   Wren’s Melissa Coker, are selling their goods at a super discount (50-70% off) this Saturday.

Plus, vintage pieces from Balenciaga, Prada, Comme des Garcons, Ann Demeulemeester, Chloe and Rick Owens.

Happy shopping!

Resurrection, 8006 Melrose Ave., L.A., CA 90046 Saturday, May 2, 12 p.m.-6 p.m.

--Melissa Magsaysay

Top: A look from Katy Rodriguez, photo by Katy Rodriguez; Left: A runway look from Wren, photo by Lori Shepler / L.A. Times; Right: A runway look from Gregory Parkinson, photo by Spencer Weiner / L.A. Times

PARIS -- It's always interesting when fashion deals with the idea of permanence, which is so antithetical to the whole 'here today, gone tomorrow' enterprise. But that's exactly what Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren did with their provocative Viktor & Rolf collection Monday with a visual pun on the overused term "classic."

Against a backdrop of classic marble statuary, they sent out clothes in all shades of stone, with details that mimicked the draping and pleating on the marble figures. They started with skirts and coats molded and folded into stalagmite-like points, before moving into soft silk and lace draped or seamed to evoke similar sculptural features.

I'm dashing out to two more fashion shows tonight before I have time to sit down and explain Los Angeles native Rick Owens' men's runway debut in Paris earlier today, so I thought I'd just go ahead and post the video. When today's shows are wrapped up, I'll share a few comments the designer made about the collection and his inspiration.   
Rick Owens AW09 Men's Show in Paris, Jan. 23, 2009 from Adam Tschorn on Vimeo.