Viktor & Rolf
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The Label
Mixing the drama of grandly staged opera with the precision chic of the Paris couture since officially launching in 1997, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren are the industry’s Barnum and Bailey. Their collections are too arty to just be called fashion and too fashion-y to be called art. Presentations are never boring affairs, both in terms of entertainment and design. Famously in 2005, while Tori Amos crooned onstage, the Dutch duo sent out dresses and suits with pillowlike collars and coats that could double as the fluffiest down comforters around. Yet underneath the obvious theatrics, there are real clothes here that appeal to the international set as well as edgier Hollywood types like sometimes muse Tilda Swinton.
The Look
A heady mix of high art, high fashion, and humor.
The Designer
Horsting and Snoeren, who could pass as twins with their lanky frames and dark hair, met while studying fashion at the revered Academy of the Arts in Arnhem, Netherlands. After graduating in the early nineties, the two stuck together through gigs at Jean Collona and Martin Margiela, slowly honing their own aesthetic and business plan. In 2006, they took their cerebral designs to the mass market, launching a collection for H&M, including a wildly successful series of chic-on-the-cheap wedding gowns.
