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.

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 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 Haute Couture Catwalk Fashion Show Paris SS2018

The designer-duo Viktor & Rolf created their entire s2018 couture-collection from the same fabric: a technical satin duchesse from Japan, a noble cloth that for the design duo spells couture.
They ticked off a run of best-of silhouettes while they were at it. The opening woven minidress recalled the hessian dress worn by Maggie Rizer in the label’s fall 1999 collection, for instance, with signature elements like cape shapes, flowers, bows, frills and ruffles adding texture to the collection.

Long silk gowns and skirts cut on the bias sported bold colored stripes or geometric motifs sewn into the fabric, recalling granny patchworks. The standouts included a double-breasted blue and red striped blazer with a royal-blue frill framing it, running from the collar down the sleeves.

The collection had an old-school couture vibe but was wearable, with the highlights including a green silk minidress with 3-D daisies.

The newness in the colorful lineup mixing conservative and clownish attitudes came not only in the innovation, with the designers managing to create new materials using the fabric, but also in its sustainable bent.

Backstage Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Show Paris FW2017

Take a look backstage at the haute couture-show of Viktor & Rolf. Lats minute action before the dolls came alive on stage.

Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Show Paris FW2017

With Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2017, Viktor&Rolf presented a parade of Haute Couture Action Dolls: a surreal yet playful fashion team of stylised Viktor&Rolf mascots, rooting for a world that is creative, diverse and eco-conscious.

Their outfits consist of a bomber jacket, jeans and a t-shirt. Various doll elements, including fabric-covered faces and bodies are fragmented and mingled into an extreme patchwork statement.

Patchwork continues to explore the idea of upcycling. It also serves to symbolise a wish for harmony: to create unity through diversity.

Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Catwalk Show SS2017

To state Viktor & Rolf’s couture collection was breathtakingly beautiful would still be an understatement. Their collection of broken dreams was simply stunning from beginning to end. Inspired by Kintsugi (the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum as it’s breakage and repair are part of the history of an object) the Dutch design duo cut up old vintage gowns and used pieces of them on their brand new designs (quite the sustainable idea). Attached with a gold or silver lining around it, just like the cups and bowls you’d find after Googling ‘Kintsugi’. Now in case you thought this game of cut and paste would make the couture pieces end up like rag dolls, this was definitely not the case. The pieces gave the new looks, which were already stunners, extra value, a deeper layer. The color scheme (that moved from brights to pastels) worked gorgeously as did they interplay of sheerness, highly decorated jacquards, polka dots, checks and thick layers of 3D tule. Viktor and Rolf even pulled off some impressive couture pants. And believe it or not this collection even appeared quite wearable (given that it was haute couture and Viktor & Rolf). The finale of five different (broken) dream dresses was every girls fantasy. The deep green cut-outs attached to the light pink gown (look 28) was the perfect couture gown mash up. Couture collage done like only Viktor & Rolf would. Can you tell we’re head over (their shiny, ankle strap) heels?

Backstage at Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Paris FW2016

Take a look backstag at the Viktor & Rolf show yesterday in Paris. Hair- and beautyteams preparing the models, the dresses getting a last finish and oh, take a closer look at those beautiful fabrics.

Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Fashion Show FW2016

Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren have kept everything from their old collections, even the leftover silver sequins from the collection that won the Dutch duo top prize at the Hyères festival back in 1993.

They repurposed those sequins, and scraps from collections across their career, for their fall couture collection, weaving their own fashion history into rag-rug embellishments on vintage trenchcoats, military jackets, sweatshirts and denim.

Their impulse was sustainability — and to challenge themselves to create something different from fragments of the past. There were bits from their “Blue Screen” and “Van Gogh” shows — fall 2002 ready-to-wear and spring 2015 couture, respectively.

Beyond the fabrics, the silhouettes referenced past Viktor & Rolf shows, particularly the bulging finale coats, recalling their “Russian Doll” collection.

The sweatshirts and military jackets were marvels of jutting ruffles and twinkling patches of vintage buttons and errant crystals, the patches repeating on cropped jeans and khakis. The show reached a dramatic crescendo with a clutch of trenchcoats that morphed into full-skirted ballgowns, scraps of tulle tinted into delicate dégradés.

The white gown that capped the display also winked to Viktor & Rolf’s next move: A collection of wedding dresses to debut in October during New York Bridal Week.

Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Catwalk Fashion Show Paris SS2016

Leave it up to Viktor & Rolf to blow our minds with a collection of wearable art (turning into almost unwearable art). Starting off with a perfect cute little white polo dress inspired by Cubist portraits the couture pieces got bigger and bolder with every single look. Slowly yet steadily turning that girl in the little white dress paired with the latest black shaded Dr. Martens 1460 Ajax Boots into a girl sporting a larger than life white totem. Eyes, noses and lips everywhere, in the mix with V&R’s signature sculptural XL ruffles and bows made out of a white technical piqué. Walking couture sculptures, letting Viktor and Rolf focus on what they’re best at and what they love the most; designing pure pieces of art. Creations not necessarily meant to be worn (although we’d love to see a totem look on some runway any time soon, what do you say front row guest Iggy Azalea..?) or make money with (V&R fragrances cover most of that part), but crafted couture to entertain and inspire. This was undoubtedly the most original take on the crispy white polo shirt we’ve ever laid our eyes on and we won’t soon forget.

 

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