Rick Owens was born on 18 November 1961 and grew up in Porterville, in California's Central Valley, in a conservative Catholic household; his mother is Mexican. After high school he moved to Los Angeles to study art at Otis College of Art and Design for two years, then took pattern-making and draping at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. That led to work in the garment trade, making copies of designer clothes. Through the photographer Rick Castro he met Michèle Lamy, a figure of the Los Angeles scene who would become his partner in life and business.
He launched his line in 1994 from a store on Hollywood Boulevard. Charles Gallay, a boutique known for avant-garde designers, was among the first to stock him. Wider notice came when Kate Moss was photographed by Corinne Day for Vogue Paris in one of his signature leather jackets. American Vogue then sponsored his first runway show, Sparrows, for Fall/Winter 2002, and that year he won the CFDA Perry Ellis Award for Emerging Talent.
In 2003 Owens and Lamy moved to Paris, where he has shown ever since, making his home and atelier in a five-storey building once used as offices by President François Mitterrand. In 2004 they founded Owenscorp.
His early clothes were shaped by scarcity. With limited means he repurposed military bags, army blankets and washed leather into dresses and jackets, and favoured black and muted tones, above all a grey he calls "dust", which became a signature. In Paris his shows have often been statements in themselves: for one he replaced models with an all-female team of step dancers, and his collections have repeatedly celebrated the strength of women.
Alongside the main line he has created DRKSHDW, which grew out of the earlier SLAB, and Lilies, as well as a furniture practice; a 2013 Prehistoric collection of furniture was shown at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in London. Collaborations have included Birkenstock, Veja, Moncler, Champion, Dr. Martens and Converse. In 2017 the brand reported around $120 million in revenue, and Owens said it intended to remain independent.
His honours include the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for fashion, Fashion Group International's Rule Breaker Award (2007), the CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award (2017) and CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year (2019). The Triennale di Milano opened his first museum retrospective, Subhuman Inhuman Superhuman, in December 2017. His books include L'ai-je bien descendu? (2007), Rick Owens (2011), Rick Owens Furniture (2017) and More Rick Owens (2023). His 2019 collection Larry was dedicated to the designer Larry LeGaspi, whom he regards as a creative forefather.
From 28 June 2025 to 4 January 2026 the Palais Galliera staged Temple of Love, the first Paris exhibition devoted to his work, with Owens as artistic director. More than 100 silhouettes, from Los Angeles to his latest collections, were shown with personal documents, films and works by Gustave Moreau, Joseph Beuys and Steven Parrino that illuminate his sources, from Joris-Karl Huysmans to early Hollywood. The show also honoured the central role of Michèle Lamy, down to a recreation of the couple's Californian bedroom. Owens wrapped the statues of the museum's façade in sequinned fabric and filled its garden with thirty brutalist cement sculptures and the Californian plants he loves.