All About Hun

michele lamy AND WHY WE LOVE HER

At the weekend as I shared one of my latest Rick Owen's acquisitions, Queen Marie and I were discussing our mutual adoration of Rick Owens' wife, the initmitable Michele Lamy.

We've all seen her I'm sure. This bizarre, even frightening looking women, who could be called Owens' muse as well as the absolute love of his life. She is a creative giant in her own right too with installation projects like Lamyland, as well as being the driving force behind Rick Owens' furniture, however it's her utter embodiment of the Owens aesthetic that captivates me.

The internet is filled with fashion goths draped in nothing but black Ricks Owens pieces and you'd be forgiven for assuming that is all he does, but to me Lamy shows us that the Owens lexicon is far more complex and involved than these minimal interpretations of his pieces would have us believe.

The Owens world is actually hugely rich in colour but it's the kind of colour you might expect to see in ancient, crude dying processes. Murky browns, ash grey, anthracite, muddy olive - colours that could be produced by crushing herbs, spices and vegetation and smearing it onto fabric. It looks like it comes out of the earth and is almost tribal and Lamy herself brings this to life. She could be a nomad in some exotic tribe in a far flung place with her weathered skin, gold teeth, dyed black fingers and ever present forehead smudge.

When Lamy wears Owens it makes sense in a way it doesn't on everyone else.

As a women, I admire her utter embodiment of not giving a fuck. In her 70's, she breaks every rule that was ever written about women beyond their 40's. She doesn't just break the rules, she sets them on fire then lights her cigarette with the flames.

Of course she lives in an enclosed bubble that ordinary people like you or me don't, where extreme eccentricities or bizarre outward appearances never produce even a quizzical sideways glance, but none the less I think we can all take away a little bit of her attitude. I feel so inspired by her excess in everything - from all the jewellery to her haphazardly smeared kohl. But also the fact it's really only an older woman who could look even half as good being so extreme. It's the lined skin that tells a thousand stories and she wears them like a badge of honour, and rightfully so.

Here's to Hun. We love you too.