DESIGNER'S SERENE CURATED EXTREME MINIMALIST HOME. CALM INTERIOR 🖤 EXTREME MINIMALISM WITH STYLE 🖤

We're going to do something a little bit different in today's video which you might have gathered from the intro because even as somebody that claims to be an extreme minimalist I like to also look at other people's extreme minimalist homes. So yes we're talking about minimalism and we're talking about design and these are not just fake books they are storage containers for my soy wax candles because storage space as I've spoken about many times really has to be incorporated in minimalist design unless you have a very large home a bit like Rick Owens like we're going to talk about today and unless you barely own anything. So moving these to the side for one second whilst we get right into Rick Owens home because I actually came across this video about a year ago and it has definitely inspired some of my thoughts about my own home and about extreme minimalist spaces because what I think Rick Owens achieves as you are about to see in his home which is based in Italy is how even though he does have quite a few objects that he calls sort of objects of wonder and affection they are either historical pieces of almost artifacts that he chooses to keep because they give him inspiration as an artist and designer but in other areas he actually calls himself an eliminator and a reductionist because he chooses not to barely have anything in his home I mean as you're about to see as we go around his home he has a very very super extreme minimalist wardrobe and in various places of his home he actually doesn't have any artwork and it is the textures of perhaps even the walls and things being marble which are his way of making his home interesting like bringing nature and industrialism together which is again something that I really enjoy in my home albeit on a lot less grand scale so I haven't actually think given what he does he can do that and you know who's to say that even as an extreme minimalist we can't have the odd piece of artwork if you want and if you like because I'm sure many of you will agree after watching this is definitely extremely minimal let's go. I'm Rick Owens and this is my place in Concordia Italy my factory is across the street and this is where I come to do my collections in this space I don't like living with a lot of things I'm not very acquisitive but the things that I do live with are very special to me and I'm gonna show you around. The few things that I have are probably things that I've wanted for a really long time. So right off the bat I absolutely love that he has all these marble walls in his bedroom and obviously the soft linen textures and even the odd plant I think it brings this element of warmth to the room even though it's spacious and he doesn't have anything else. I love the marble I think the bringing in of a natural texture to the wall like that is what makes the room interesting. I've obviously tried to do this in a little way because I love the concrete effect but because I rent a property I've had to obviously do it renter friendly with just sort of wallpaper that will easily come off when we eventually leave so I am absolutely loving the aesthetic of his room and obviously the low bed as well nice. The place that I've ever lived in including Hollywood Boulevard Los Angeles I've always insulated and upholstered my spaces with army blankets vintage army. I think with the army blankets what he has achieved from my perception is a kind of modest humble material and fabric next to the kind of opulence of the marble. I've actually moved away from having rugs and things especially when he's got such beautiful floors but I can understand him wanting to bring a little bit of warmth in and obviously he's got that grey palette of the army blankets with his bedding which kind of goes you know we can take and leave from it what we want in general I Army blankets. This is inspired by Joseph Beuys who was my first art hero when I went to art school and he used army blankets as a symbol of protection and insulation and isolation. The army surplus store was where I would get my original fabrics I would make clothes out of the duffel bags out of blankets out of parachute clothes. Since then which must be like 30 years ago every place I have I cover with army blankets. When I work on interiors or furniture I'm pretty much a reductivist. I don't think about domestic details that much they feel a little fussy to me so the domesticity in this apartment is pretty minimal. So he basically has the extreme minimalist wardrobe I think just off a quick glance there it looks like he's got about ten pieces all black kind of the typical extreme minimalist uniform. That's my closet I don't have very many clothes that's a little stack of t-shirts a little stack of shorts for here for the factory for every day and that's pretty much it. I always kind of like sticking to a decision so when I pick an outfit I'll pretty much stick to it for a couple of years. My clothing choices have evolved from Hollywood Boulevard it's always been some kind of shorts and it just gradually changes over the years. Every collection I just have 20 more shorts made and I just have little stacks of them everywhere. When I first put this place together seven years ago I wanted Italian rationalism I wanted something kind of monastic something kind of severe. I like the classical tone the travertine interior sets I like putting myself into that zone. I wanted some place that would be a blank space for me so I could get into a zone of putting a collection together. I might have overdone it I put travertine everywhere I could I put it on the walls on the floor. I wanted a... I love that all the storage that he does have in his home is all hidden by these walls of marble that are sort of push clothes you know push fit wardrobes and drawers I would love that so that he's got storage without us even realizing it's there. Travertine box to work in kind of like a cave a travertine cave something stone I know that I wanted to live in stone. The terrace overlooks the factory right over there I asked the gardeners or the landscape artists to never touch this garden I wanted it as shaggy as chaotic as wild as possible. Oh look at those beautiful shaggy. These chairs are by the Italian futurist artist Giacomo Balla they're very severe and yet kind of fantastic at the same time. Giacomo Balla is usually a lot more colorful than this so I was really lucky to find something so subdued. They are so uncomfortable they're hard the angle of the back it's you have to sit so upright so it feels like a church pew. I like the idea in minimalist design that it can vary greatly so sometimes people will think of a minimalist aesthetic as having certain aestheticisms but originally minimalist design was considered quite austere straight lines and I think that's what he's trying to say with these church pew style chairs that originally that is what minimalist was sort of no luxuries although it's becoming a bit more fluid now like I personally like a lot of the wabi-sabi style which is definitely more rounded curves and less straight lines but I like that he loves the severity of these chairs. A little bit punishing I rarely sit in them but I love them so much and I've probably kind of knocked them off with my furniture collection to a certain extent. One of my favorite things that I do like to wear even though I don't wear very many things is this robe I've indulged myself with this from my spring-summer 17 collection it is silk taffeta lined with a cotton Peleovo fabric it is regal and cozy on a winter morning when I'm wandering around having coffee on the terrace. But my favorite object is this one. I was working with a dealer in New York who would send me images of sarcophaguses that were up for auction and they were always a little bit too colorful and they always kind of looked a little fake to me but anyway finally this one came and so it was so worth the wait we call her Liza after Liza Minnelli. Space in this building became available a few years ago and we entered into an agreement to collaborate with the family that was running it and to turn it into an Owens Court bar. It is part canteen for our crew our team that is in the factory right across the street but it's also for the community I mean it's open to everybody. We've included furniture pieces from the Rick Owens furniture collection we have bronze pieces from our accessories and home objects collection and the piece de resistance of this space is this mural by my daughter Scarlett Rouge. This mural was inspired by the Larry Legaspi show that I had just done. I'd also put out a book on Larry Legaspi and in the book he talks about his fascination with the movie Things to Come by HG Wells from the 1930s. I don't like a lot of decoration but if you're gonna do a decoration I want it to be as extravagant and as dramatic and as extreme as possible and I think that's what this is. I've been working in this office for 20 years and I've never repainted it because I like the patina of all of the tape marks and all of the pencil marks of all of the collections that we've gone through. I like having that sense of memory. These pieces have been with me for a while these are objects from our I guess homeware collection. I like the fact that obviously he keeps a couple of more objects around than perhaps the average extreme minimalist might but at the end of the day it's because it is his business you know he has designed these objects so I can understand him wanting to keep a reminder of that around and again natural materials made out of crystal A bronze gourd vase and rock crystal goblets. I think of these as relics of the pieces that we do for the interiors. These could be futuristic or they could be ancient. I like that we're using the classical materials like bronze and rock crystal. Everything that I do is kind of a blend of the past and the futuristic so that they kind of create a retro futuristic aesthetic that I've been developing over the years. It's funny that he says that about the retro futuristic because I often think the mid-century modern look with sort of the spade leg furniture similar to sort of Urcol kind of is what some people refer to as Jetsons type furniture like off of the cartoon which is supposed to be futuristic which ambiguously I think many of us associate as being sort of 1930s 1920s 1930s yet weirdly also looks futuristic so I get what he means there because that is what I kind of like as well. For several years I have been collecting these Anagatori rooster feathers. They were bred originally in 17th century Japan. My father had a library in the basement full of Japanese art books and I remember seeing watercolors, old watercolors of Anagatori roosters in those books. I've been in contact with a farm in Japan that will send me the feathers that fall off and so I've collected a few and I'm hell-bent on collecting as many as I can and I like to have them around to remind myself of unlimited possibilities. I like to start from a clean slate every collection but these have stayed here these have been here for close to 20 years. I had a fantasy of actually breeding them myself but that's not very practical but you one day maybe. Thank you for allowing me to share my world. Every day I'm very grateful that I ended up here. So I think Rick Owen, not the singer, the designer, is a great example that simplicity can also be luxurious and I absolutely love the way he brings together some natural textures with some industrial textures. I definitely think that that's what people like Frank Lloyd Wright did as well who are big inspirations to myself which I obviously try to emulate as I've said before on a lot less grand scale but who knows maybe in our future forever home we might try to incorporate a few of these different things as I think there are many different aesthetics within minimalism albeit minimalism is not just an aesthetic. I am very very interested in minimalist design which often shocks people because people think of extreme minimalists as not caring about their surroundings but I've wanted to share this video with you all today of Rick Owen's home to show that even as an minimalist you can still create a home that has key beautiful inspirational things in it even if they are limited objects of affection as Rick Owen calls them. It can still be an extreme minimalist home with not much and that is what I still try to do in my home. I even get the odd comment and it's detrimental sometimes to my extreme minimalist home tours because people are like what an object that is not essential or a decor item extreme minimalists don't have that well occasionally they do because if it is your hobby to do that I think the odd item is okay I think it's why in the past I've said I might get rid of something but then changed my mind about it at the last minute because even if we live in a completely bare home with hardly any furniture I think it's okay to keep the odd item that truly brings us inspiration. Once again I hope you've all enjoyed Rick Owen's home tour extreme minimalist home tour and my reaction to it if you want to watch the original which is slightly longer I'll link it down below because there he talks about a few more of his objects as well thanks for watching. Quickly I have just taken my coat off because it was getting a little bit warm I just wanted to add to that for anybody that also wants to watch my extreme minimalist home tour I'll link the most recent one down below as well.