In Australia for the opening of their exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Bronwyn Williams lifts the lid on the unconventional duo behind Viktor & Rolf.
Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren are surrounded by flowers. All around their hotel room, peonies, poppies and roses of every hue explode out of vases, bowls and glass vials, filling the air with an overwhelming intensity. The Dutch design duo perch on a couch amongst the blooms like blackbirds in a garden – expectant and alert, their matching dark rimmed Viktor & Rolf glasses framing their sharp eyes.
Bottles of Flowerbomb – the fragrance that made the Viktor & Rolf brand a household name – are scattered across every available surface. Without Horsting and Snoeren’s presence, the atmosphere in the luxurious Sydney hotel room could have been frou frou, vacuous even, but the two dark birds in the garden lend the scene a depth and intrigue, a hint that there’s something else more interesting behind the floral façade.
Horsting and Snoeren met while studying fashion at the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design in The Netherlands and began working together upon graduating in 1993. They swiftly began to turn heads in the fashion world for their rebellious approach to design and their ability to dance in the space between art and fashion.
The brand drew media attention right away, and museums began to collect Viktor & Rolf pieces for their collections. In 1998 they began showing couture in Paris, and in 2002 mega beauty conglomerate L’Oréal came knocking. A partnership with L’Oréal was their passport to the creation of a fragrance, and Horsting and Snoeren were given complete creative freedom in its development.
Flowerbomb first burst onto the market in 2005, assaulting the senses with a heady concoction of intense florals blended with an undercurrent of musk, and shaking up the fragrance world at a time when the trend was for fresh, unisex scents. With no market research into the type of scent that would sell well, the designers simply created something they liked.
“I don’t even think L’Oréal tested it. We just started smelling, and we noticed we liked flowers, lots of flowers,” says Horsting, who along with his business partner doesn’t play by traditional design rules. “But flowers can easily be a bit old fashioned. We wanted to create something that would be romantic, but also slightly aggressive.”
Dubbed their ‘weapon of mass seduction’, this juxtaposition between unabashedly feminine florals and carnal musk resulted in Flowerbomb being ranked as one of the world’s top fragrances (11 years after release it still sits in the top 10 best-sellers in Australasia) and made Viktor & Rolf the name on every woman’s lips.
“By working with opposites, something happens which is unusual” murmurs Snoeren, the quieter of the two. “It gives it something that isn’t perfect. We kind of like that tension.” And it’s this tension that runs as an undercurrent through everything the brand touches, from eyewear to a one-time collaboration with H&M in 2006, to haute couture.
From hundreds of tiny crystals painstakingly hand-stitched onto a dress of common jute – a rough natural fibre generally used to make grocery bags – for autumn 1999 haute couture, to white sports mesh transformed into walking cubist sculptures for spring 2016, Horsting and Snoeren revel in taking the common and treating it as if it was the most precious commodity in the world. With inquisitive minds and an ambivalent attitude to their own industry, their work quietly and humorously challenges our cultural norms.
For their autumn 2014 couture show, the duo explored society’s obsession with celebrity and the industry’s practice of paying stars to wear designers’ garments to red carpet events. They sent 22 breathtakingly elegant gowns down the runway which were, ironically, made from red carpet. “Often our inspiration comes from fashion itself, or our position in the fashion world” explains Snoeren.
In 2009, when, in response to the economic crisis, most design houses were slashing budgets and creating very conservative collections, Horsting and Snoeren sent a series of outrageously exuberant, layered tulle gowns down the runway with slashed sections that looked as if they had been cut, carved out or sliced with a hedge trimmer. The collection title? ‘Credit Crunch Couture’.
In 2008, feeling the pressure from the demanding pace of designing ready-to-wear, they created a collection titled ‘NO’, a sculptural suite of grey wool suiting and silk eveningwear dominated by the word ‘No’. “We love fashion, but it’s going so fast,” the duo explained to press at the time.
“We wanted to say ‘No’ this season.” The pressure didn’t ease, and last year Viktor & Rolf announced the termination of their ready-to-wear line. “It just didn’t feel right” explains Horsting. “We feel that with couture and fragrances we can make a difference and really contribute something, whereas with ready-to-wear we always felt we were working after people’s expectations and deadlines.”
Self-confessed ‘fashion outsiders’, the pair – whose matching outfits, monotonous tone and seemingly single-brained thought process (they finish each other’s sentences, without ever interrupting one another) has seen them likened to the art world’s famous double act Gilbert and George – choose to be based in the fashion no-mans-land of Amsterdam, away from the hubbub of Paris.
It’s here with their 25-strong team, in a historic building right on the canal, that they create their masterpieces. “We like to think that we’re a bit in and a bit out” says Snoeren. “We like to take a step back and think about fashion, reflect on fashion.”
Having begun their careers showing their work in an art context, and with a multi-disciplinary approach that has seen them create everything from sound pieces to fashion and performance art, it’s a natural fit for Horsting and Snoeren to exhibit their designs in an art gallery.
Having previously exhibited at London’s Barbican Art Gallery to critical acclaim, their National Gallery of Victoria show Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists examines their lifelong exploration between the fashion and art worlds.
Featuring a selection of the designers’ most show-stopping works from the past 23 years, including a series of dolls dressed in miniature recreations of some of their most well-known pieces, the exhibition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get up close and personal with the exclusive and cerebral world of haute couture.
“People always ask us ‘is your work fashion or art?’” muses Snoeren, sinking back into the couch and crossing his legs thoughtfully. “That’s why we call ourselves fashion artists” replies Horsting. And with that, they turn and look at me, blinking in unison.
Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists is on at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne until 26 February 2017.
