PARIS 9/28 — Viktor & Rolf underneath the tents in the Tuileries made for an easy, but no less rewarding Saturday. This show is always so charming and not least for its casting brain, Andrew Weir. On the day Mr. Weir cast the in-form Elisabeth Erm, who is walking in nearly every show of note this season.
Staging is an important aspect to the life of any collection by Dutch designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren (above), who for Spring 2014 riffed on the 1979 Roger Waters double LP, schoolboy-turned-drug-addled-rocker-cum-potentate confessional, The Wall.
The runway show featured no marching hammers or carnivorous flowers, mind, but the obvious bits, namely white bricks and inky mortar that were duly laid on the runway and climbed the wall at its base, did. The Viktor & Rolf logo, then followed the set aesthetic and was scrawled in black script up the side of the wall.
A variation on “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” played during the show, despite “The Show Must Go On” or even “In the Flesh” off side four of the double LP providing the most literal parallels. But, then again, metaphors are best when they are not so literally served.
Special praise as ever goes to Andrew Weir and Pat McGrath, two of my favorite people to see backstage during Paris Fashion Week who understand the value of social media in fashion.
Backstage at Viktor & Rolf:
Although I did not attend the Jean Paul Gaultier show on Saturday, I nevertheless caught echoes of it later that night at the Wilhelmina agency dinner at trendy Chez Julien at 1 Rue du Pont Louis-Philippe. Coco Rocha arrived still sporting the rockabilly pompadour by Guido that she wore down the runway not long before the dinner. Also in that show and attending the dinner were show opener Manon Leloup, as well as Soo Joo (wearing a sexy Pucci number, below) and Cindy Bruna.
