Rick Owens, Spring 2013.

Rick Owens is a maximum expert in the field of draping people in 37 yards of fabric that look like either dust sheets or blackout curtains. Conversely, he's also pretty damn good at tailoring, albeit the sort of tailoring required to make the shoulderpads fit really well on things that look like a High Priestess costume in an episode of Star Trek. Given this combination of gothy apocalypse drapery and Needs More Gold alien royalty-wear, it's probably not all that surprising that I kinda love him.

pics from Style.com

This season's show opened with the simplest outfits in the collection, a selection of shapeless shifts that will be surely an A+ choice next time you decide to dress up as a Sexy Coffee-Filter for Halloween. Not being massively psyched about beige shift-dresses at the best of times these outfits didn't really grab me, but thankfully things warmed up pretty quickly after that.

 I loved the styling in this show. This is what Tilda Swinton's kids look like, right?

This is probably what the costumes in Dune would've looked like if the Dune movie hadn't been a visual representation of David Lynch being handed an unlimited budget and promptly going into a psychic tailspin.

(OK, Google just refreshed my memory re: Dune, and actually the costumes are one of the best things about that movie.)

When I'm a rich old lady (which will definitely happen because people whose speciality is "writing niche reviews of movie costume design" always end up rich, am I right?) I fully intend on being a collector of high-end fashion. My entire collection will be made up of outfits that look exactly like black plastic bags but inexplicably cost $$$, and when people look at my collection and judge me I'll just cackle the laugh of the 1%.

Rick Owens provided several variations on the black-plastic-bag theme this season, although I'm sparing you the bin-baggiest of them because I'm a kind and considerate person. Instead I picked out the slightly superior bug-lizard outfits, which are actually pretty OK as long as you're comfortable with looking like you just made a smock out of Xenomorph hide.

The final third of the show was where the Needs More Gold alien priestess outfits truly came into their own. Honestly, I'm rather confused about the target audience this season. The show wasn't particularly out-there in terms of extreme style (although the catwalk itself did involve a waterfall of foam), but at the same time it wasn't wearable or on-trend enough to truly court the Ready-To-Wear crowd. Although the balance of layers and the relaxed, unusual tailoring style are pure Rick Owens, the overall mood and colour palette are a lot less grungy and dramatic than I'm used to seeing from him -- so I'm not altogether sure that he'd even retain his usual audience. Still, it's an eyecatching and interesting collection.