A decade after they took to the stage with “Wearable Art,” Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren returned to the stage on Wednesday with “Diamond Kite.”
The concept: a concise couture show-slash-performance piece featuring a lineup of 15 looks done entirely in black with, for each, a single colorful element in tulle—an accordion-pleated band of yellow, tessellated bouffant sleeves, a ruffled cape, a ruff that fanned from elbow to ear, and so forth.
With each passage, the duo plucked off the brights and piled them onto model Elpida Voryas Georgiadi, turning the concept into Tetris-like construction until she became a kite, complete with yellow-bowed tail and clever rigging that hoisted her mid-air for the curtain call. That in itself was a tribute to the iconic album cover for Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights. As theatrical fashion moments go, this one was right up there: a moment of transcendence and escape—everything fashion lovers love about couture.
It was also a work of art years in the making. “Some ideas need time to come to fruition,” Horsting said backstage before the show. “The last time we were on stage together, we said ‘never again.’” After a pause, he added, “It makes you wonder whether there’s something going on subconsciously.”
This culminates a marathon week for the duo—last Wednesday at the Louvre, they unveiled a 75th-anniversary, limited edition Cinderella doll, a project with Disney and Mattel. If there’s a common thread to be found, it’s a sense of serious playfulness and collaboration—and not just with each other. Everyone’s in on this game.
Even so, that was just the top layer. Once robbed of their color and rods, the dresses became harder to discern—black on black will do that—but here were favorite Viktor Rolf tropes, from strict silhouettes inspired by Victoriana to whimsical cascades of classic couture fabrics like heavy crepe, satin and silk gazar. Not visible enough in this format were shoes by Christian Louboutin and, especially, stunning high jewels by Elie Top. But the designers’ sui generis spirit—playful, focused, but not overly serious, fleeting yet grounded—remained intact.
