Travis Scott Joins Forces With Rick Owens to Design a Lavish Backstage Sanctuary for His Utopia—Circus Maximus Tour
Photo: Nick Knight
It’s no surprise that rapper Travis Scott would tap Rick Owens Furniture to craft the backstage setup for his Utopia—Circus Maximus tour, given the Astroworld mastermind and fashion’s dark prince seem to speak the same visual language. Scott’s exploration of the darker side of hip-hop and Owens’s signature gothic ethos, famed across his fashion and furnishings, show some obvious aesthetic overlap. The genre-bending rapper has teamed up with different factions of Owens’s design house for some time now, including earlier this year when he was enlisted to work on the wardrobe and set design for Scott’s SNL appearance in March.
“When [Rick Owens Furniture] was doing the stage for us at SNL, I told them I was going on tour soon,” Scott says of his ongoing chats with Owens and Michèle Lamy, the executive manager of Rick Owens Furniture as well as the designer’s wife and longtime muse. “I asked if they could help bring an extension of my day-to-day on the road. They were into the project. It was dope.”
To outfit Utopia—Circus Maximus’s backstage hangout, the team introduced a setting they dubbed Tech Glade: a twist on the original Glade structure the brand launched in 2019. The large-scale piece, composed of 10 or more modular sections, featured an elegant, cocoon-like sofa with a brooding canopy and an internet hookup. Scott’s remixed iteration of Glade is a transportable home-away-from-home that’s modified to accommodate the artist’s active mind at work and at play. There’s space for a large-screen TV, and a Damien Quintard–designed recording studio was carved into one of the modules. “I envisioned a space that feels like an extension of my brain,” Scott says. “Something comfortable and all-encompassing. I like to record, watch movies, chill, have conversations. I wanted it to be all in one. The [Tech] Glade really is perfect for that.”
Lamy explains that a versatile setup was of the utmost importance, considering the Tech Glade would have to unfold perfectly in a number of different settings on tour. “Knowing that we would not see these different backstages—small, large, high, or low—we were able to construct the Tech Glade in a very movable way,” Lamy tells AD. “We adapt it to each venue.”
Made of batipin plywood (a variety of pine) covered in French wool army blankets—both signature Rick Owens materials—the Tech Glade’s design echoes the original Rick Owens Home Pompidou bed. The “Fe!n” rapper personally owns one. The Brutalist-style piece, which made an appearance on Scott’s SNL stage, was created for a 2019 project with Paris’s Amis Du Centre Pompidou.
“When thinking of designing a studio, the most important aspect is the inspiration you get from the design that surrounds you,” says Quintard, the French producer whose Miraval Studios (cofounded along with Brad Pitt) has been a favorite for recording artists like Justin Bieber, Sade, David Fincher, and Scott himself, since its opening in 2021. “I’m so happy we were able to create a modular structure that could work with all types of backstages, not only sonically but architecturally.”
Come January 2025, the Tech Glade will go from backstage to front-and-center. The piece will be on public display during a Rick Owens Furniture exhibition at Salon 94 Design in New York City. The show will present several Rick Owens Furniture works in new materials, including a similar Tech Glade with audio-visual components.
Scott will continue touring throughout Latin America and Australia until the end of October, with the Tech Glade in tow.
Additional credits for Nick Knight images:
Creative Director : Calum Knight
Production Designer : Andrew Tomlinson
Digi Op : Joseph Colley
Photo Assistants : Grace Hodgson, Hassan Saif, Josh Tarn, Jed Barnes
3D Imagery : SHOWstudio
Retouching : Epilogue Imaging
Production : Liberte Productions
Hair and makeup for Michèle Lamy: Martina Derosa and Natalia Krzewska
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
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