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Viktor & Rolf featured men's-wear looks with a Forties slant, while Jean Paul Gaultier explored the equestrian in his first collection for Hermes and Alexander McQueen's styles had a touch of the alien about them.
Viktor & Rolf: The deep, dark forest -- a classic fairy-tale setting if ever there was one, and the one chosen by Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren to frame the beautiful Viktor & Rolf collection they presented on Friday. "It's about a metamorphosis," said Snoeren before the show, about "the transformation of a woman into a deer."
Anyone expecting such a tale to feature damsel types in various states of chiffoned, beribboned delicacy should not judge a show by its soundbite. Because, for all their doe-eyed makeup and fanciful antlers, Viktor & Rolf's models told a story of chic urbanity, and the collection's real transformation was one of classics made captivating.
Fall's strong strain of men's wear themes provides an alternate reality to the season's assorted girly fare. Such clothes often exude a confident swagger, and Snoeren and Horsting bring to that attitude an artistic bravado, rendered now in a seamless flow of feminine elements into the tailoring. Thus, an unfrilly bow softened a coat's strict geometry; and draping dolled up a pinstriped skirt's bankerly bent.
Horsting said the purpose of the show was "to push classics to the edge." After numerous seasons of high-concept shows, for spring the designers tempered the lofty level of their show with a playful turn to sportswear of the Forties movie-star sort, the better to show off their commercial side. Here, they refocused that glamorous aura on a more dressed-up kind of day clothes, with wide scarves threaded through slits in jackets or worn inside a coat, but trailing a swoosh of glittering crystals, or a Hepburn-esque shirt-and-trouser combo glitzed up by a twinkling Swarovski crystal waistband.
As for evening, clearly the designers' relationship with the intriguing Tilda Swinton has them thinking atypical Hollywood. While they haven't fully resolved what that means, they're working on it. They showed riffs on le smoking and took liberties with siren seduction. One gown fell from a strong shoulder a la Dietrich; another, a pale, misty green chiffon, draped over a thick crystal ribbon that laced down one...