Viktor&Rolf: the best of ready to wear

February 3, 2015 by  
Filed under Fashion, Featured Items, Paris, womenswear

This morning the house of Viktor&Rolf announced via an exclusive story to WWD that it would stop creating and producing ready to wear after fall/winter 2015.
This is what WWD wrote:

“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.

We’ve gathered the most memorable collections for you.

Comments

One Response to “Viktor&Rolf: the best of ready to wear”

  1. Silvie says:

    Stunning collections, love it so much!! Focus on haute couture is great decision indeed…

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