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FIT

Mel Ottenberg Gets

Ripped for Rick Owens
By Mel Ottenberg
Photographed by Roe Ethridge
Styled by Mel Ottenberg

October 30, 2023

Mel Ottenberg wears Brushed Cotton Hoodie and Brushed Cotton

Sweatpants Moncler + Rick Owens. Speedo Stylist’s Own.

Our editor-in-chief Mel Ottenberg

puts some muscle into the new
Moncler + Rick Owens collab.

MEL OTTENBERG: Hey.

RICK OWENS: Look at that

mustache. Is that new?

OTTENBERG: It’s a beard.

OWENS: Well, it looks great.

OTTENBERG: Thanks. You look

great, too. How are you?

OWENS: I’m good. We’re at the beach

in Lido. It’s the end of the day—I’m
going to put my earbuds in because I
want the sound of your voice "lling
my head.

OTTENBERG: I’ll do the same. I

want the full Rick experience. Okay.
So you’re at the beach, summer’s
coming to an end. I’m thrilled,
personally. I want sweaters and
leathers on my body. Your body looks
great, by the way.

OWENS: It’s changing a little bit. I’m

62 now, and it’s not as easy to keep
the stomach ripped. It feels like I’m
doing just as much work, but it’s not
doing exactly what it’s supposed to.

OTTENBERG: I’m 47, so you’re

really inspo for me here. Although
I’ve never had a ripped stomach.

OWENS: Well, I don’t want to be

discouraging. It’s not that hard to get
it. For me, it’s not about cardio
because I’m just naturally super
lean, probably because I smoke a lot
and drink a lot of co#ee. You
probably need a di#erent kind of
recipe, but I always say, it only takes
one Donna Summer song of sit-ups
every day. It’s not that hard.

“I just want to look

good in clothes.”

OTTENBERG: Now we’re talking.

Which song?

OWENS: “I Feel Love,” the best song

ever in the entire world.

OTTENBERG: How many sit-ups do

you do?

OWENS: I just do 200 at most, 100 if

I’m lazy.

OTTENBERG: I think I’m going to

listen to “MacArthur Park Suite”
a$er this really loud and do sit-ups. I
was supposed to go to the gym this
morning, but I skipped it because we
had a party last night.

OWENS: Are you still sober?

OTTENBERG: Yes.

OWENS: How does that work?

OTTENBERG: It works "ne. Maybe

I’m a bit more boring because I’m
more practical, but I think at this
time in my life, it’s the only way to
be. I have a clean mind and I’m very
aware of everyone else’s bullshit. It’s
an easy way to keep the good ones in
and keep the bad shit out.

OWENS: I don’t know how you

maintain interest though, because
you’re a smart, funny guy, but
there’s a lot of people out there who
aren’t smart and funny that you have
to deal with when you go out, and it’s
not worth it to me sometimes.

OTTENBERG: I don’t go out that

o$en.

OWENS: Going out for you though is

essential because your role is to seek
out people that are sparkling. It’s
always been hard for me to "nd them.
I’m not saying that’s because my
tastes are so elevated, it’s just that
there’s a lot of bad stu# out there.
There’s so many loud voices looking
for attention in the wrong ways.

OTTENBERG: Yes.

“It would be too drama

queen to torture
myself.”

OWENS: Both of our jobs are to edit

and be selective, and that sounds so
elitist and judgy, but I hope that we
do it kindly. I was just reading Cathy
Horyn in The Cut today and she was
talking about the current state of
fashion. She’s smart, but her tone
can be so snarky.

OTTENBERG: I think you and I, and

we’ve been friends for quite a long
time, are not always satis"ed with
what we’re "nding, but we’re
de"nitely open to "nding it.

OWENS: We’ve been friends for

around 20 years.

OTTENBERG: I was at your "rst

fashion show in New York in 2002. I
was interning backstage, putting
shoelaces through everyone’s belt
loops.

OWENS: Yeah. The "rst song to the

"rst fashion show that I ever did is
still an anthem for me. It was Alice
Cooper’s “Sick Things.”

OTTENBERG: Wait, hold on. I really

like looking up lyrics.

OWENS: I do that, too. Read the

whole thing, it’s really good. It could
be my manifesto.

OTTENBERG: “Sick things in cars/

Rotate round my stars/ Sick things,
my things/ My pets, my things./ I love
you things I see as much/ As you love
me/ You things are heavenly when/
You come worship me./ Your things
are chilled with/ Fright for I am out
tonight./ You "ll me with delight,
you/ Whet my appetite.” Those were
the lyrics to your "rst fashion show.
Talk about an editor. You really
know your shit, baby.

OWENS: I stand by those lyrics. I

should print them on something.

OTTENBERG: You should. Is Alice

Cooper one of the forefathers that
created your aesthetic?

Down-Filled Jacket in Recycled Longue Saison and Radiance-Quilt

and Bigrocks Boots (worn throughout) Moncler + Rick Owens. Speedo
Stylist’s Own.

OWENS: He absolutely is, but like a

lot of those people, he slipped over
into something comical. It’s a tricky
thing. You see people embracing
something that’s new, that feels
grotesque and almost threatening,
and then it loses its bite. KISS was
like that. When KISS was starting
out they were genuinely a threat and
I genuinely believed that Gene
Simmons was vomiting blood and
that he had really slit his tongue.
They really were scary. Then a$er a
while they became cartoons.

OTTENBERG: It’s important when

you’re going out on a limb and you’ve
really got a look, to always be open to
the evolution of said look. Otherwise,
you’re just going to become a trope of
yourself. How do you avoid going so$
like Alice Cooper or KISS?

OWENS: It’s always honest and it’s

got to be real. I remember reading an
interview where Alice Cooper said,
“People need to separate me from my
stage persona.” I was crushed. I was
like, “You don’t really mean it?” That
was a big lesson for me. You can’t put
something out there that you don’t
believe in, or else people are going to
see through it. I don’t like phoniness.
Now, this is coming from somebody
who does shows with smoke and
mirrors and "rebombs. I believe in
arti"ce and theater, but behind it,
there has to be a genuine ethos and a
genuine connection.

OTTENBERG: Totally.

OWENS: Honesty is the main thing.

And I also want to be entertained. I
want excitement. I want to be
shocked. And I want to put stu# out
there that I want to see. Right now
I’m reading biographies about the
aesthetic peaks people reached in the
past and it makes me competitive
and hungry for that kind of
experience.

“What’s your bad

habit, Rick?”

OTTENBERG: Are you a harsh critic

of your own work?

OWENS: It would be too drama queen

to torture myself. Sometimes I think,
“I really hit a bullseye there.” And
then sometimes I think, “That was
nice,” or, “That’s adequate.” I’m
rarely ever disappointed because I
work too hard on things. It takes a
long time and a lot of energy, but if
you have an end goal that you can
visualize, you can get there. So every
fashion show is really a pleasure. I
don’t know if this will last forever,
but this is the way it’s worked for me.

OTTENBERG: Right.

OWENS: Because at the beginning I

didn’t know what I was doing and I
was grasping a bit, I was making
some mistakes. But then a$er a
while I learned how to operate with
what I had. And once I got better at
it, I learned to relax and have fun. If
you don’t try and pretend to be
somebody you’re not, you can come
up with something good.

OTTENBERG: Good advice.

OWENS: By the time the show comes

around, I’ve put together the best of
what I can as honestly as I can do it.
Usually, I think, “Okay, this is nice
and this’ll work.” And so show day is
usually a really relaxed day for me.
It’s like a birthday party. We met the
deadline and we got it there. And now
all that’s le$ is to enjoy unwrapping
it in front of everybody. Maybe
someday it’ll change, but I don’t
really have that stress of, “Are people
going to like it?” I don’t know if
that’s self-satisfaction, but by the
time it’s there, I’m thinking, “If I like
it, somebody’s got to like it.”

OTTENBERG: Fuck yeah. I like it.

We like it.

OWENS: Thanks, Mel.

OTTENBERG: Sure, Rick. I’m going

to ask you some rapid-"re questions.
Are you ready?

OWENS: Go.

OTTENBERG: Do you like answering

questions?

OWENS: Probably too much.

Sometimes I do these things and I’m
thinking, “Wow, you really like the
sound of your own voice, don’t you?”

OTTENBERG: What are you

listening to right now?

OWENS: I’m listening to Unicorn on

Ketamine, which is gabber techno,
and Shirley Horn—old jazz—and Julie
London.

OTTENBERG: Fabulous. Okay. What

do you collect?

OWENS: I don’t collect anything. I

get rid of stu# all the time. The thing
about having things around is that
they become invisible, they just
become trophies. That being said,
right in front of me is this bronze
futurist head on top of a pillar that I
have here proudly in my apartment
in Lido. So I do collect a few things,
but not a lot.

“I haven’t eaten sugar

in 51 days.”

OTTENBERG: So what’s your bad

habit, Rick?

OWENS: Smoking, I guess. I don’t

know if it’s that bad.

OTTENBERG: Cigarettes?

OWENS: Yeah.

OTTENBERG: What brand?

OWENS: Marlboro Light 100s.

OTTENBERG: True glamour.

OWENS: Well, what’s truly

glamorous is I have a stash that they
send me from Japan because the
packs are white and the cigarettes
are all white and they’re prettier.

OTTENBERG: How many a day?

OWENS: Oh, like eight.

OTTENBERG: Wow. First thing you

do when you wake up?

OWENS: Make co#ee.

OTTENBERG: How do you take your

co#ee?

OWENS: Black, espresso.

OTTENBERG: Same. Okay. Tell me

about your gym routine—wait, we
already did Donna Summer. FYI, I’m
going to wear a silicone abs muscle
out"t when I’m modeling your
Moncler collab because I’m feeling
fat, and I don’t want to go on
Ozempic because I don’t think that’s
hot for me. It’s the same as Botox.

OWENS: It’s totally valid to do drugs

for a week just to get yourself over
some kind of hump. I don’t think I
would have the body that I did if I
hadn’t taken steroids 20, 25 years
ago.

OTTENBERG: They set your body

right? Look at this. [Li$s up shirt]

OWENS: Oh, my god.

OTTENBERG: That’s not giving

steroids. Rick, it’s fat.

OWENS: Yeah, but that’s giving a

di#erent kind of hotness. There’s a
market for that.

OTTENBERG: Yeah, I do "ne. I just

want to look good in clothes. But this
is not about me. It’s about you. What
do you like to eat?

Jersey Cotton Bermuda Moncler + Rick Owens.

OWENS: Cake.

OTTENBERG: Oh my god, you’re in

Venice. Harry’s Bar, that fucking
cake.

OWENS: You know I get those to go.

OTTENBERG: Wow. So you have

that body right now and you still eat
that Harry’s Bar cake because you
took steroids 25 years ago. We are
really teaching the people things
today. Wait, what is that cake called?

OWENS: Vanilla cream meringue.

OTTENBERG: I haven’t eaten sugar

in 51 days, but I will de"nitely be
eating that cake again soon. What’s
your favorite internet rabbit hole?

OWENS: God, I can’t think of one.

Porn, I guess. Porn will lead you to
di#erent kinds of porn, to di#erent
kinds of porn, and I’m always going,
“How many di#erent combinations
can I look at?” And then an hour
later, it’s—

OTTENBERG: Right. You’re still

looking an hour later. What’s your
favorite body part, Rick?

OWENS: Of mine or of somebody

else’s?

OTTENBERG: Yours.

OWENS: I guess my tits are pretty

good.

OTTENBERG: They are.

OWENS: I’ve been wearing a lot of

deep v-necks and I show my tits a lot.
I’m not going to have them forever, so
I’m going to work them while I can.