I've tried hard to like these garments - I'm a sucker for a conceptual design team and I do like V&R's cheeky grinny demeanour, always have done - but I don't know, ultimately, for the most part, the looks, in particular much of the opening section and the theatrical looks, are just silly and ugly.
Ok I can see the thinking behind it - push the classic men's shirt to meet it's counterpoint, a wedding dress; force the motif to confront it's opposite other; and maybe it's just I don't like wedding dresses - but the very concept of an avant garde wedding dress? I don't think it works, it's just too far removed. Ok it's a play on the deconstruction of signification perhaps and it's great when say Rei deconstructs a traditional staple like the banker's suit, but I think it's just that this much lady frou in my avant garde is somehow objectionable.
Which is a difficult position to occupy in that I've enjoyed the deconstruction of 'Lady' at the hands of Christopher Kane and Proenza Schouler this season. But I can't help keep thinking that since Renzo took over V&R have been dissenting from within, crying out with their work and deliberately sending themselves up.
If there's a comment here about a bad marriage, well yes my gut has always been that Renzo and V&R is a bad marriage and always would be. I always think back to the 'No' collection.
Yes we have here the exploration of their shirt themes. And the doll themes. And the playing with proportion. And it's like a confluence of many of their preoccupations rolled into one, almost a retrospective, but the end result - it's just somehow aesthetically displeasing, like a joke and a protest all at once.
Like they sort of want to kill themselves in a sickly sugar coated pact of self hatred for selling out. And if you think about it a little longer - That play of opposites - weddings...funerals...
So I suppose I could appreciate this as a sort of irony. I feel sure for one thing - it's not delivered with a straight bat. But the end product is all just so cloying, awkward and saccharin that I don't want to look at it again.
I see on the Vogue.com vid Renzo was sort of accosted as if, we don't see the interviewer's question, it was put to him - what's the game here then - hmm, ahh, sheepishly, awkwardly '...to give them greater visibility'.
Yes it would be apt commentary to see one of these monster dresses in some Hello mag wedding spread, the tacky bride thinking she's exhibiting how cool she is in V&R. But the joke would be on her wouldn't it boys - the whole monstrosity of the idea of taking the brand to this wider visibility, to people who just want the brand identification for empty show.
At least Viktor & Rolf themselves seem a little more cheery when interviewed than when Renzo first took over. It's like they pedal the commercial party line now but with grins all over their faces. Yes, they reconciled how to play their situation and they're laughing. And if you don't get it then the joke's on you. Buy into it - fall for the sucker punch. It's a mischeivous black humour. They've explored Alice in Wonderland and continue to do so and now they play the part of the tailors in The Emporer's New Clothes. I like them in the part. But the clothes - they don't really exist.
made me smile
