How Old is Rick Owens​?

Rick Owens is 64 years old. Born on November 18, 1961, in Porterville, California, the designer will turn 65 in November 2026 — and he’s shown zero interest in slowing down to celebrate it.

That single fact answers the search query, but it barely scratches the surface of why people keep asking it. Rick Owens has spent over three decades building one of fashion’s most distinctive aesthetics — a mix of monastic silhouettes, distressed leather, and towering platform boots — and his age matters mostly because of what it represents: longevity in an industry that chews up trends every six months. Below, we’ll cover his birth details, his career arc, and why his age keeps surfacing in search results long after most designers his generation have retired or been forgotten.

Rick Owens’ Birthday and Current Age

He was born Richard Saturnino Owens on November 18, 1961. That makes him a Scorpio, for whatever that’s worth to his fans obsessed with the brand’s dark, almost gothic identity.

A few quick facts for context:

Some older biography sites list his birth year as 1962, and a handful of numerology-style pages even shift the day to November 19. Wikipedia and most fashion-industry sources consistently confirm 1961 as the correct year, sourced from his own interviews and official biography.

Where He Grew Up — And Why It Shows Up in His Work

Owens didn’t come from Paris or Milan. He grew up in Porterville and San Jose, California, raised by his father, a construction worker, and his mother, Concepción “Connie” Owens, in a strict Catholic household. That upbringing gets referenced constantly by fashion writers trying to explain his aesthetic, and honestly, it tracks — there’s a rigid, almost ascetic discipline running through his collections that reads like rebellion against a conservative childhood rather than pure artistic whimsy.

He studied painting at Otis College of Art and Design for two years before dropping out. From there he moved into pattern-making and draping at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College — technical, unglamorous training that gave him the construction skills his later runway pieces would depend on.

From Bootleg Copyist to Runway Name: The Early Career

Here’s a detail most fans skip past: before Rick Owens became Rick Owens, he spent years making unlicensed reproductions of designer pieces for a Hollywood Boulevard boutique. Not exactly the origin story most luxury brands lead with.

He launched his own label in 1994, at 32 or 33 years old, working out of a small studio in Los Angeles. It wasn’t an overnight sensation. Owens built a cult following slowly, through independent boutiques and word of mouth among stylists who wanted something moodier than the era’s minimalism.

The real turning point came in 2003, when he relocated to Paris with Michèle Lamy — his creative partner and, since 2006, his wife. Together they founded Owenscorp in 2004. Moving to Paris put him inside the machinery of European fashion weeks, and that’s when the brand’s global reputation started to take shape.

What Has Rick Owens Accomplished So Far?

Rick Owens has spent over 30 years building a fashion house recognized for its avant-garde tailoring, and he’s collected serious industry honors along the way, including a Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award and CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year.

His label now spans multiple lines — DRKSHDW for streetwear-adjacent pieces, Rick Owens Lilies, and various diffusion collaborations, including a notable Birkenstock capsule. He’s also written novels and worked as a furniture designer, which tells you something about how he sees the brand: less a clothing company, more a total aesthetic universe.

Why Owens’ Age Keeps Generating Search Interest

People search “how old is Rick Owens” for a specific reason: the man behind such an extreme, youth-adjacent aesthetic is now in his mid-sixties, and that contrast is genuinely interesting. Most designers either retire, sell to a conglomerate, or fade into consultant roles by this stage. Owens is still designing every collection himself, still showing in Paris twice a year, still photographed backstage in his own bleach-blond, heavily tattooed uniform.

That’s arguably rarer than the clothes themselves. Fashion rewards youth culturally while often punishing designers for aging out of relevance commercially — Owens has managed to sidestep both traps by staying weird rather than chasing trends.

Rick Owens Compared to His Design Peers

Placing his age next to other working designers helps frame just how long he’s been at this:

• Rick Owens (b. 1961) — still designing his own runway collections at 64.
• Rei Kawakubo (b. 1942) — Comme des Garçons founder, still active into her eighties.
• Yohji Yamamoto (b. 1943) — also still showing collections in his eighties.
• Martin Margiela (b. 1957) — left his namesake house in 2009 and moved into fine art.

Owens sits in decent company. The avant-garde end of fashion, unlike the commercial mainstream, seems to reward designers who keep working well past when others would have exited.

Rick Owens isn’t just a fashion designer who happens to be 64 — he’s proof that the label’s uncompromising identity was never a young man’s trend. If you’re curious about his current collections or want to trace how his aesthetic evolved decade by decade, his runway archive on Vogue Runway is the most reliable place to start digging.

FAQs

How old is Rick Owens right now?
Rick Owens is 64 years old, born November 18, 1961, and will turn 65 in November 2026.

Where was Rick Owens born?
He was born in Porterville, California, and later raised partly in San Jose before moving to Los Angeles for design school.

When did Rick Owens start his fashion label?
He launched his eponymous label in 1994, after years of making unlicensed designer reproductions for a Los Angeles boutique.

Is Rick Owens still designing today?
Yes, he remains the active creative director of his label and still presents runway collections in Paris each season.

Who is Rick Owens married to?
He married Michèle Lamy, his longtime creative and business partner, in 2006.