Rick Owens Talks About Punching his Rogue Runway Model

Rick Owens explains why he punched his former muse.

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Complex Original

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Rick Owens' Spring/Sumer 2016 runway show drew more than just attention from fashion critics after one of his models decided to make a political statement on the runway. Of course, this didn't go unnoticed by Owens who, understandably pissed-off, punched his former muse the moment he got backstage.

Talking about the mishap with Surface, Owens opens up about the entire fiasco, and why he had to punch his model.

“I was pissed at that moment. I thought, ‘Hey, this is my spotlight, and you fucked it up,’” Owens explains. “The whole reason I hit the guy was I knew if I didn’t react very strongly it might get out that this was some stunt that I had planned. Everybody had to know how strongly I disagreed with this.”

It inevitably came out that Jera Diarc (the model in question) was considered by Owens to be of his muses; being one of the only designers to actually use him for runway shows on a regular basis. This also explains how Owens can speak so candidly about Diarc. Owens explains:

“He’s always been a heavy drinker, and a little erratic, which was adorable. But what he did was just so illogical. He was very accepted here and embraced by a community of people who were very affectionate toward him – a group that now feels more hostility toward him than I do because they feel protective of me. It was really a self-destructive gesture.”

Rick Owens has always been willing to go to the weirder parts of fashion—like when he turned himself into a centaur for a short film, or when he showed penises on his Fall/Winter 2015 runway. Sure, Owens may like surprising his audience...but don't use his runway to make an unexpected political statement.

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