Designer: Viktor & Rolf
Written by chameleonfridays on July 12th, 2008
Models with own lighting for Autumn 2007
Victor and Rolf are best known for being a an incredibly close dutch design duo. They describe themselves as twins and both dress the same and finish each others sentences.
Viktor & Rolf met while studying fashion at the Arnhem art academy. After graduating they moved to Paris, interning for brands such as Maison Martin Margiela, designing their own clothes in the evenings and presenting them in the art circuit.[1] In 1993, Viktor & Rolf won the Festival d’Hyeres prize.
In 1998, Viktor & Rolf put on an unauthorized, underground fashion show during Paris Fashion Week designed to attract members of the press. Ready-to-wear and their menswear label “Monsieur” were to follow over the next five years. Viktor & Rolf also produces women’s shoes and hand bags (designed by Dutch designer Fredie Stevens), glasses (Asia only), neckties, scarves and lingerie. Viktor & Rolf have also worked as curators for several exhibitions, and have designed stage-outfits for several theatre productions. According to the designers, “For us, fashion is an antidote to reality.”
In 2003, the Fashion Museum in Paris presented a 10-year retrospective of the designers’ work. In 2005 they opened their first, flagship shop in the Golden Quadrilateral (Quadrilatero d’Oro) in Milan, and were contracted by L’Oreal to develop their first perfume, called Flowerbomb. In 2006, their first men’s perfume, Antidote, was introduced in the US. Viktor told Harper’s BAZAAR the fragrance was “all about the power of transformation. The power of every individual to turn anything into something positive.”
In November of 2006, Viktor & Rolf followed Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney in designing a line for the Swedish-based retailer H&M.
Characteristics of their clothes include layering, distorting, exaggerating and repeating of classical design elements (blouses with 10 nested collars, upside-down and lop-sided dresses). Full article.
