At 71 he faced the canvas, scrawny, grey-naked, palette and brush in hand, with just a pair of unlaced hobnail boots on his feet.

ECONOMIST: Lucian Freud, painter, died on July 20th, aged 88

Soon Blake began spending nights at her house, shuffling around in a Vikings jersey with his work boots unlaced and a beer can in his fist, and before long he was chainsawing every tree in her back yard and running wild with a rented backhoe.

NEWYORKER: Good Neighbors

Then she was walking along Teallback Road like a sportwalker, like some lady who walked every night to get slim, except that she was nowhere near slim, she knew that, and she also knew that when sportwalking you did not wear jeans and unlaced hiking boots.

NEWYORKER: Puppy

This afternoon, a few days after Owens's well-received fall 2013 runway show, the designer has been persuaded to conduct a house tour, clad in his usual uniform: unlaced sneakers, shorts over trousers, a halter T-shirt atop a garment he calls his "level" turtleneck (because of the straight line across the shoulder, in front of the throat).

WSJ: Designer Rick Owens's Paris Home | WSJ. Magazine May 2013