Viktor & Rolf to Halt Ready-to-Wear

[poison84]

PARIS — Viktor & Rolf are to halt ready-to-wear following the fall-winter 2015 season and concentrate on couture, fragrances and licensed businesses. Disclosing the development first to WWD, Dutch designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren said the decision was made in concert with majority shareholder OTB Group, the holding of Italian industrialist Renzo Rosso.

Rosso characterized the rtw shutdown as “a strategic decision to position the Viktor & Rolf brand in the highest luxury segment of fashion.”

It echoes last fall’s bombshell when French designer Jean Paul Gaultier said he would shutter rtw after a 38-year career to focus on high fashions and the perfume business it fuels, along with special projects.

A Viktor & Rolf spokeswoman said the designers would present and sell a final fall-winter 2015 women’s wear collection, but skip the runway during Paris Fashion Week, scheduled for March 3 to 11.

Viktor & Rolf ships its rtw collections for men and women to more than 100 specialty stores, and operates a freestanding store on Rue Saint Honoré in Paris, which is to go dark in early 2016. "We feel a strong need to refocus on our artistic roots. We have always used fashion to communicate, it is our primary means of artistic expression,” Horsting said, lamenting that rtw — with its fast pace, deadlines and fierce competition — “started to feel creatively restricting. By letting go of it, we gain more time and freedom.”

"We are extremely excited to push the boundaries of our vision in new, unexpected territories,” Snoeren concurred.

The designers launched their brand in 1993, started showing couture in Paris in 1998, and began focusing on rtw in 2000. In 2005, they catapulted into the big league with the launch of Flowerbomb, their first women’s fragrance, in collaboration with L’Oréal.

“The decision to focus on haute couture is a strategic decision by the house of Viktor & Rolf to position the brand in the highest luxury segment of fashion,” a L’Oréal spokeswoman said on Tuesday. “We are confident that our strong collaboration with Viktor & Rolf will continue to see the launch of many successful fragrances.”

Viktor & Rolf showed five couture collections between January 1998 and July 2000, including the Atomic Bomb collection, featuring dramatic mushroom cloud-like cushioned necklines. For the Russian Doll show, the designers dressed model Maggie Rizer in 10 layers of clothes, merging fashion with performance art.

The majority of those pieces were sold to museums and institutions.

A men’s wear’s line, Viktor & Rolf Monsier, was introduced in 2003. Despite this move into the mainstream, Viktor & Rolf maintained their reputation for unconventional catwalk presentations, many featuring live performances by actors and singers, including Tilda Swinton, Rufus Wainwright and Tori Amos.

OTB Spa invested in the brand in 2008, heralding what seemed to be a new stage in its development.

wwd

 

[Marc10]

Honestly, I won't be surprised if they're out of business in a couple of years. I can't remember the last time they made a good/relevant RTW collection, and their Couture revival so far is a complete bust. They just lost "it", sadly. Fragrances must the only income these days.

 

[shopping247]

^ well, I hope this "strategic move" can give them some time to get their creative juices going again. I would be very disappointed if their future sources of income derive solely from fragrances (which I am not too fond of).

 

[vetements]

What a shame, these guys are so talented. I feel they just are stubborn at doing what they want and don't care a hoot about commercialism, should take a page out from the likes of phoebe philo or Marc Jacobs, who are 'pseudo' artistic, yet commercially very viable, churning out it bags and topic- worthy items.
The termination seems to be renzos intention to axe them, slowly. I don't blame him, he is primarily a business man but surely something more can be done?

 

[Nymphaea]

I'm not surprised, let's see what the future brings.

 

[tatouejeremie]

the beginning of the end no?
i think their brand has been horribly mismanaged, first renzo rosso ruined sophia kokosalaki and now viktor and rolf.. terrible

but i won't miss their collections, they lost their magic a decade ago

 

[lucy92]

I have no idea what Renzo Rosso is thinking. These guys can be commercial and they've proved it with their H&M collection.

 

[GIVENCHYlover]

Good news for us

 

[anlabe32]

Good news for us

Excuse me? Do you know how disrespectful that sounds?
What's your country's biggest high fashion retailer? How would you like it if someone said it's 'good' they are shutting down in a time many labels are struggling to remain afloat, even the ones who at least try to be creative and artistic. At the same time, the big houses are sending the same collections in different colours and fabrics down the runway and all the mass retailers are copying the clothes. Where does that leave the creativity?

 

[mistress_f]

this actually makes me very sad, i have some clothes / shoes of theirs and they used to be absolutely great.
i don't understand what's going on here though, it's not like their couture has any commercial appeal, even considering extravagant couture buyers.... oh well, they'll have always their perfumes, i guess

 

[perhydrol]

I'm quite sad but their rtw hasn't been good since 2013 IMO, it was quite boring, like a one, big collection divided into smaller ones.
I don't think that they'll be ok with that artsy couture and Flowerbomb (ok, it's popular but still not popular enough) and I don't want to see their end soon.

 

[squilliam]

This does seem like the beginning of the end. They're not like gaultier, I don't think they're brand can live solely on fragrances and the occasional sold couture piece (and considering how much it costs to produce couture and how much a brand can lose creating a collection for couture)

 

[orthelian]

This makes me very sad too. Their last RTW collection was completely lost on me until I saw an interview with them, today actually, and after that I loved it. I really hope this isn't the beginning of the end, but considering how this business has treated both designers and models and surely every other job in fashion it may sadly be so...

 

[Scott]

to be honest,i really believe their mainstream aspirations have totally deluded their creativity.....what they once were able to balance out so stunningly and beautifully when they started the p-a-p in 2000 they abandoned when they begun licensing their name out for scents.

i will miss it,for it was in it's first three or four years but not so for throwing that immense and extraordinary vision away in the latter years

RIP-

 

[mikel]

This makes me very sad. They lost their spark a few years ago, but they are still my teenage heroes.

 

[VogueDisciple93]

Well this was expected. The brand lost its luster and appeal years ago, and this is not due to OTB or Renzo but the designers themselves - their collections have been critical and commercial busts for quite some time. It is sad to see another brand go under because this is somoneone's dream and income for many.

I think they are taking the smart route here. Fragrances keep them fiscally afloat and in order to keep selling them at the prices and doors they do they need to upkeep a luxury brand image, and imaginative haute couture collections does that better than creating numerous diffusion lines to hold up a faltering RTW business. Maintaining stores, creating and presenting at least 4 RTW collections a year cost more than the 2 couture collections they will now do.

Beauty and accessories keep houses alive. Majority of consumers can not afford RTW or designer apparel so they buy into a brand and lifestyle through the accessories and beauty products. Fail to create a covetable accessories and/or beauty selection and you will fail to fund your business.

 

[Fewormany]

This doesn't really come as a surprise. Let's hope the focus on couture will bring back the creativity and make them relevant again. Something they seem to be missing at the moment.

 

[GivenchyHomme]

Not a loss, they've been irrelevant for years. The last RTW collection of theirs I remember was Spring 2010 and that was 5 years ago!

 

[andrew]

well, as someone who intermittently enjoyed the rtw output (men's), can't say i'm surprised. it was expensive, kitschy and weird in a very niche manner, and lacked dsquared2's 'buy a logo tshirt' appeal. they would have definitely gone the diffusion route a long time ago if flower/spicebomb didn't exist.