The main person at fault is Larry LeGaspi, a designer who passed away in 2001, who has since become one of Rick Owens’ true obsessions. In the seventies, LeGaspi opened Moonstone, his first store in which he showed collections inspired by science fiction and interstellar travellers, which were misunderstood by buyers (who thought it was a costume store) but gladly accepted by the world of show business.
THE OBSCURE DESIGNER THAT HAS INSPIRED RICK OWENS’ LATEST COLLECTION
Rick Owens’ latest collection kept its indisputable lines but surprised with volumes that were built through platforms and sharp shoulders, shimmer and silver. What was going on?
LeGaspi dressed LaBelle in silver for her Rolling Stone cover, created Kiss’ aesthetic and Parliament/Funkadelic’s Afrofuturism and even turned to trash with Divine. He designed intergalactic sets but also looked at the Golden Age of Hollywood with his sateen dresses, leather trousers and took advantage of the technology of the moment in which they were developing spandex and Thinsulate. A kind ensemble of simplistic garments and a stage drama that appeared on magazine covers and parties, but hardly ever reached stores. Even though his proposals were connected to big names from the entertainment industry, he wasn’t considered to be part of the fashion industry and slowly started to move away from the spotlight.
He changed Nueva York for the West Coast and ended his days in Los Angeles, the city where one of his greatest followers lives. Rick Owens admired the work of LeGaspi, even though he was unsuccessful in searching for more information. His work, fundamentally developed in New York in the seventies and eighties, was impossible to find beyond the covers of albums that had been discontinued. Owens’ passion for LeGaspi was rewarded once he found out that one of LeGaspi’s references in NY was Bill Cunningham, the historic fashion photographer but above all of the New Yorker lifestyle. Through him, he reached Val LeGaspi, the author’s widow, who opened Larry’s archives for him, with boxes and boxes of never-before-seen sketches.
Many of them will appear in the book about Larry LeGaspi that Rick Owens will publish soon with Rizzoli. But so many of those hours searching images and stories have also ended up in a collection that Rick Owens has simply called Larry.
