Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Show Paris FW2024

That was another expressive, surrealistic and wonderful coutureshow of Viktor & Rolf. The Dutch designers keep surprising their audience and fans.

NATAN Couture-show FW 2024

The Belgian couture-house Maison Natan officially presented their fall/winter 2024 collection in Paris last week. We had the honor to shoot the premiere in Brussels two weeks earlier.

Backstage Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture SS2024

Take a look backstage at the haute coutureshow spring-summer 2024 of Viktor & Rolf in Paris. The finishing touch of make up and hair plus the final check by the designers.

Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Fashion Show SS2024

Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, the designers behind Viktor & Rolf, can always be trusted to bring some humour to the Haute Couture shows. With their latest collection, the Dutch duo once again tapped into the absurd, delivering a collection that was entirely black but full of lightness.

Playing off the friction of indecision, where we’re often pulled to extremes of choices, Viktor & Rolf’s Spring/Summer 2024 coutureshow entitled ‘Viktor & Rolf Scissorhands’, was comprised of seven “flawless couture outfits” that were then used as blueprints for three consecutive iterations of the same design. As if slowly disintegrating, looks escalated to complete dismemberment by way of erratic cutting.

The concept “investigates the creative (im)possibilities of a pair of tailor’s scissors, when used spontaneously to experiment with decorative cutting,” read a statement. “From minuscule holes in a Rorschach motif to a ballgown hacked in half: holes and slashes are controlled and directed but also form instances of orchestrated chaos.”

The result was half-slashed bodices, tulle skirts carved up haphazardly, large bits of fabric peeled away and exposed layers. While ‘ruining’ a garment may sound like easy work, the craftsmanship involved in the original pieces and their slashed-up counterparts was not lost on viewers.

Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Show FW2023

The brand Viktor & Rolf is 30-years-old, and Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren’s humorous take on fashion hasn’t dimmed. Their ironical spirit is still there, and yesterday’s couture show was V&R tongue-in-cheek-conceptual entertainment. No anniversary collection with revived classics, but a celebration with a leading role for the bathing-suit.

Variations on a theme and repetition is what their repertoire has often revolved around. Here the potential of the bathing suit, be it a covered-up one piece or a tiny bikini, was explored with focus.

The designduo took eye catching elements from their iconic collections and added or transformed it to bikini’s or one piece bathing-suits. Classic V&R details like the big bows of their Flowerbomb-collection, the three dimensional words DREAM ON and NO from their NO-collection (FW 08/09) or the ruffles and long cape taken from their Black Light collection from spring/summer 1999. But there was many more. The duo also invited some celebrities – like Shakira – to wear key-pieces from their old collections to the show.

Yet the show stopping icing on the birthday cake were headless (male?) mannequins wearing black tailored tuxedos, hanging onto the models’ backs, or twisting in multiple formations around their bodies as if they were desperately calling for attention and didn’t want to let go. You can translate those images and this collection into a lot of symbolic stuff. To me it looked like an attempt to embody the women-empowerment, the fact that no matter what a woman is strong and tough as hell and invincible – and that even male designers like Viktor & Rolf couldn’t have survived in the business without women. So maybe, maybe it was also a big ‘thank you’ and humble bow to women.

Viktor & Rolf Paris Haute Couture Show SS2023

At the Intercontinental Le Grand hotel in Paris, VIKTOR&ROLF showcased a collection of head-turning looks. The show began with a handful of breathtaking tulle dresses in the most delectable confectionary hues. But as the show progressed, the dresses started to appear in the most bizarre positionings – from appearing slightly lopsided and with a bustier placement right up to the model’s neck, to being entirely sideways, as well as upside-down and covering the face. With certain looks, it seemed as if the model was carrying the dress while wearing undergarments. It was joyful, playful and a creative take on classic couture-dresses. 

Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture show Paris SS2020

Inspired by the Holly Hobbie cartoon and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie Viktor & Rolf came up with a patchwork like couture collection made of leftover materials.

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Big Volumes Couture Trend AW2019

Big volumes have always been a big theme in couture land. Highly accentuated shoulder, rounded hips, balloon sleeves and skirts made out of endless layers of tulle. Check out the latest collections from the likes of Iris van Herpen, Giambattista Valli (the absolute tulle title holder and volume victor) and Schiaparelli. With couture minded coupes and make-up to match. Go big or go home is the message (yet again).

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Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Paris SS2020

Last season’s collection was all over the internet and went endlessly viral on IG. Even till today, when Christina Aguilera arrived in that “Fuck this Im going to Paris”-dress, it’s a megahit. So how to follow up on a hyped up collection like that? A moody but later on light hearted collection entitled Spiritual Glamour shown at the Westin Hotel was the answer. “Our spell is to transform the feeling of doom about our environment into positive action,” said Horsting. And so the designers collaborated with textile artist Claudy Jongstra. A specific shade of Burgundian black made from botanical pigments turned up on coats and dresses. As the collection slowly became a little more cheerful towards the end when the sun, stars, flowers, butterflies and the usual bows brought some extra optimism. Architectonical shapes, patchwork details, funky hairdos (with little waves) and dramatic eye make-up turned each look into a showstopper. It might turn out as less of a hype perhaps, but with a stronger sustainability message this time. “Our models are like modern witches looking for a spell to make people look at fashion production and consumption differently”, Rolf said. Let’s hope the fashion system is not cursed.

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Iris van Herpen Haute Couture show SS2020

On Monday Dutch designer Iris van Herpen presented her latest couture collection ´hypnosis´. Nineteen laser-printed, heat-bonded and laser cut dresses inspired by the kinetic sculptures of American artist Anthony Howe. As Céline Dion, wearing one of the dresses, watched from the front row the designs gracefully moved (with duchesse-satin cut into thousands of 0.8 mm exquisite waves that each are interlinked, designed to move faster than the eye can follow) with every step of the (run)way. Yet explaining the way these dresses were constructed or made with technology can be as dazzling as watching the designs come down the runway. ´The ‘hypnosis’ collection is a hypnotic visualization of nature’s tapestry, the symbiotic cycles of our biosphere that interweave the air, land, and oceans. It also reflects the ongoing dissection of the rhythms of life and resonates with the fragility within these interwoven worlds´, Iris told the press. Best let the designer explain the process and simply be amazed.

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