UPDATE 6/26/15: Jera Diarc, after holding his own form of protest during Rick Owens' show yesterday, has been fired by his agency, Tomorrow Is Another Day. The agency's director, Eva Goedel, also paints a horrible picture of the model and his actions. Diarc didn't own a cell phone, refused to work many times, and would only model for Owens, according to Dazed. "If you have two boys on your books like Jera, you kill yourself," Goedel told Dazed, before describing him as "an idiot." As for the stunt, it was "uninteresting, not even funny," Goedel said.
Despite all that, Goedel said Owens remained committed to him over the years. "Rick has supported him so much, every season, for every lookbook," she said. "Rick was so generous in working with him." Seems like Diarc has probably come to the end of his rope, though.
A model in the Rick Owens' Spring/Summer 2016 show in Paris took the runway with a hidden agenda today. Jera Diarc, who has modeled for Owens for over a decade, held up a small banner in the middle of his walk that read, "Please Kill Angela Merkel / Not." Merkel is the German Chancellor.
While Owens is no stranger to controversial runway statements—this is a designer who featured full-frontal male nudity in a previous show—the move was completely unsanctioned by the designer. "It’s a crazy, rogue, f***ing model that I punched when he came back out,” he told WWD. “Please say that I punched him." Owens was adamant that he played no part in this. "I don’t know [what it said] because it was not my idea," he told Dazed. "He's been my male muse for the past twelve years or something and I think he just felt comfortable enough to do something in a show and I’m furious."
Owens also released a statement condemning Diarc's actions. "This was an independent statement and does not reflect the opinion of the house of Rick Owens," it read.
