American fashion designer Rick Owens was BOTD in 1961. Born in Porterville, California to a white American father and a Mexican mother, he studied at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, taking pattern-making and fabric draping lessons at a local community college. He launched his own fashion label in 1994, selling his clothes at boutique stores in Los Angeles. His 1998 debut collection Monsters was notable for his use of luxury fabrics including silk, leather and fur, and for employing transgender models including The Lady Bunny. He rose to wider public attention when supermodel Kate Moss was photographed for Vogue Paris wearing one of his leather jackets. His work caught the eye of stylist André Leon Talley, who persuaded American Vogue editor Anna Wintour to sponsor Owens’ 2002 runway show at New York Fashion Week. His minimalist, grunge-inspired industrial designs with exaggerated Gothic silhouettes caught the sombre mood of post-9/11 America and were highly acclaimed, winning him the 2002 Perry Ellis Award for emerging talent (and the nickname “The Lord of Darkness”). In 2003, he and his partner Michéle Lamy relocated to Paris, establishing their joint fashion label Owenscorp, and avoiding large-scale corporate investment in their company. His 2015 runway collection caused a minor scandal by featuring menswear garments draped and patterned to reveal the models’ genitalia. A similar fracas followed in 2016 when his runway model Jera Diarc held up a sign reading “Please Kill Angela Merkel. Not”, though Owens later distanced himself from the stunt. Well-known for his designs for shoe brands Birkenstock, Veja, Dr Martens and Converse, his 2009 “Dunk” sneaker, “inspired” by a Nike sneaker of the same name, prompted Nike to threaten to sue him for copyright infringement. Owens has also designed several ranges of minimalist furniture, which he exhibited at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Owens married Lamy in 2006, and has spoken openly about his bisexuality.