Back to Form at Viktor & Rolf
Over the PA, the words 'you can't reach me, you can't hurt me, I can suck you dry' alerted the audience at this afternoon's Viktor & Rolf to the fact that the Dutch duo were back to their unsettling best. To the steady pulse of Bruce Nauman's 1975 spoken text 'False Silence', a procession of all the essential ingredients that maketh a fine Viktor & Rolf collection traversed down the catwalk. Whereas a sequence of elegant shirt dresses with signature tuxedo detail, some feminine swingy macs belted with pretty bows, light tailoring and a glorious 'metal' prom dress finalé hinted at a quintessentially Parisian lady on one hand, elements of streetwear (the puffa constructions that were even incorporated into a fur jacket), Peter Philips' sinister lace and hair masks and the creepy soundtrack threw these demure overtones off kilter. They may have been jolie, but these madames were subversive indeed.