Viktor & Rolf wasn’t present on the Haute Couture calendar for about 13 years and the label have changed a bit into a more commercial subject than couture. But, this summer,Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren made a decision: They staged their comeback in honor of their label’s twentieth anniversary—”there’s no better way to celebrate,” Rolf said, adding that it was also an effort to “divide our wearable side and our conceptual side.”
Very high concept it was. The presentation was more like a art performance than a show. On a Zen garden platform with few black blocks on it remaining rocks, both designer came out and… Started to meditate! It lasted for about five minutes, and then the models appeared. The looks weren’t very detailed- but their forms were a sculpture by it’s own. All twenty wore the same black fabric, a technical silk that had the spongy look of neoprene, and flat ropy sandals. The first look out, a shirtdress, had strange, deflated volumes above the knees in front and below them in back. And now the performance started- Snoeren situated the first model on a block, reforming the dress in his own patent. The next model sat down next to the first one. Horsting was doing his job in this performance. And at the end, the model in a huge cape stood in the middle of the girls, covering them all, forming a black stone! Fantastic! This looked so relaxed, ZEN, that I felt in love with this collection. About the project’s genesis, Viktor said, “We’ve been running around for so long, we thought, let’s enjoy where we are. Our current state of mind is mindfulness”