PatternVault

“Rick Owens: Temple of Love” opened today at the Palais Galliera in Paris. To celebrate the designer’s first retrospective, this post is dedicated to SHOWstudio’s latest Design Download: a Rick Owens shrug.

Part of the beauty of Owens’ avant-garde garments is their cut, so it’s fitting that the exhibition catalogue contains a section on pattern cutting. (Publisher’s preview here. For more, see Sally Singer, “‘My Role is to Provide Other Options’: Rick Owens on his Landmark Career Retrospective in Paris.”)

The SHOWstudio shrug is called TEC T, and is from Rick Owens’ Spring 2020 women’s collection, named Tecuatl for his Mexican-born mother’s side of the family.

Shown at the Art Deco Palais de Tokyo, the Tecuatl collection explored the designer’s Mixtec heritage and memories of his youth in southern California, referencing Aztec culture, Bauhaus artists Josef and Anni Albers, and Mexican architect Luis Barragán.

As Owens notes, the sharp TEC shoulder is a thread running back to his time designing in Hollywood in the 1990s. On the runway, it reappeared in sequinned jackets in white, black, and Aztec gold:

View SS20 collection images at the Rick Owens website here, or watch the runway video below. (Plus: a post about the headdresses from Wintercroft.)

This TEC T was shown on the Spring Summer 20 Tecuatl runway but the shoulder comes from some wool capes made at my Hollywood studio in the Nineties.

— Rick Owens

You can see a current-season version of the design on the Rick Owens website — part of the Spring/Summer 2025 Hollywood collection. The structure and seaming detail are more visible in the Dust colourway (click here for full description):

Owens shared these notes and instructions for his SHOWstudio pattern:

This TEC T was shown on the Spring Summer 20 Tecuatl runway but the shoulder comes from some wool capes made at my Hollywood studio in the Nineties.

This cropped version has a round neck and level line running across the chest and down the arm to finish at a geometric line at the elbow.

It features high shoulders which rise into rounded points extending the long skinny sleeve.

This version was made in a stretchy cupro jersey.

The TEC shoulders are formed with an internal structure and fusing.

The body is double layer, cut on the fold, positioned at the bottom hem. The long sleeves are a single layer of fabric, with raw edge at the cuffs. Front neckline is finished with a bias binding, left raw on the inside.

The back neckline has a 7 cm wide elastic inserted in the fold. All seams are 0.7 cm, except for the shoulder seam which is 0.5 cm.

The main fabric is used in single layer for pattern pieces 5 and 6, and for all pieces with medium and heavy fusing.

Apply medium weight fusing reinforcement on pattern piece 4, and heavy weight fusing on pieces 1, 2, and 3.

Cut around pattern and join pieces where necessary.

Edges are indicated with scissor icon, match using corresponding reference points. Construct following the numerical steps of the pattern.

SHOWstudio has posted this animated 3D rendering “for inspiration on how your Rick Owens TEC T might look”:

The pattern download comes in A4 sheets and includes the numbered Front and Back technical drawings shown above.

Download the TEC T shrug pattern (12 pieces)

Notes: Prints on 18 A4 sheets. The pattern refers to ‘dome’ sleeves.

Recommended fabrics: Stretchy jersey such as cupro knit.

Seam allowances: 0.7 cm (0.3″ approx.), except 0.5 cm (0.2″ approx.) for shoulder seams.

Notions: 7 cm (2.75″) elastic, medium- and heavy-weight fusible interfacing.