I first fell in love with the work of Viktor and Rolf when I attended a retrospective in 2008 at the Barbicon Gallery in London. It was there that I realized the boundaries between fashion and art sometimes overlap. For Viktor and Rolf, creativity and innovation are expressed in a form of wearable sculpture. I particularly enjoyed their Flowerbomb 2005 collection which included extravagant bows like a gift wrapper gone wild!
Viktor and Rolf's show on March 9, 2010 featured Kristen McMenamny dressed in layers comprised of the entire collection which were then removed one by one and given to other models. This format was similar to the routine for their Babushka collection from ten years prior. In a season that has seen a lot of restraint, this performance did not go over well with the critics who seemed to suggest that the show would be remembered "more for the spectacle than the clothes".
In spite of the poor reviews, I have to applaud Viktor and Rolf for not playing it safe. Apparently many of the clothes have dual uses (for example, a leather coat which reversed to a beaded one), which in a recession, sounds like investment dressing to me!