These Dresses At Paris Haute Couture Week Look Like A Glitch In The Matrix And People Don’t Know How To React
If you’ve ever seen a runway from a fashion show, you may have been surprised to see how many of those clothes are over-the-top and unwearable for everyday. They may look uncomfortable, too revealing or a bit dramatic. It’s because fashion is a form of art and art isn’t practical.
It was proven once again during the Paris Fashion Week that just ended. But nothing had prepared us for the Viktor & Rolf collection, although they are known for unusual silhouettes. They took the classical silhouette of a ballgown and decided that there should be a more interesting way to put it on the body, making viewers search for the meaning behind it.
Before the main show of Paris Fashion Week, we enjoyed the Haute Couture Show and Viktor & Rolf particularly caught people’s interest
Image credits: Laurent VU/SIPA
The Paris Fashion Week takes place twice a year: once in late February or early March when designers present their Spring/Summer collections and once in late September or early October when they present their Autumn/Winter collections.
Those are the bigger ready-to-wear shows, but before that, in January and in July, the more artsy shows take place. They are the haute couture or high fashion shows where designers demonstrate hand-made pieces and their craftsmanship. They allow their creativity to go wild and the results can get pretty crazy.
The Haute Couture week took place between January 23 and 26. You could see creations of the biggest fashion houses like Fendi, Valentino and Chanel walking on the runway. Among them was also Viktor & Rolf, which is a newer brand, founded only in 1993 by Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren.
The designer duo started the show with very traditional ballgowns with puffy skirts and revealed shoulders
Image credits: Laurent VU/SIPA
They are known as an avant-garde luxury fashion house and from the start, their silhouettes were extravagant with unexpected materials, but when they entered the 2000s, the duo focused on ready-to-wear lines until the Autumn/Winter 2013-14 season when they returned to haute couture.
As the brand introduces itself on its official website, “Widely recognized and respected for its provocative Haute Couture and conceptual glamour, the house of Viktor&Rolf aspires to create spectacular beauty and unexpected elegance through an unconventional approach to fashion.”
Image credits: Laurent VU/SIPA
Their newest collection is a manifestation of their vision. It is called the Late Stage Capitalism Waltz, which is “an absurd take on a stereotypical couture ballgown for the 21st century.”
The participants of the fashion show couldn’t see the absurdity at first as the dresses looked normal.
More than normal, actually. The silhouettes of the dresses were very traditional, taking inspiration from mid-20th century Haute Couture. Their features included bare shoulders, revealing décolletés, accentuated waists and voluminous skirts as well as dreamy colors.
“But dreams are deceptive. The familiar becomes strange, as the mundane transforms into the absurd and vice versa,” say Victor and Rolf. The dresses remain the same, but their position on the body is what’s different. In this way, the dress represents the romantic vision but it “alienates and frees itself from the body in a surreal way.”
Then it got more interesting when the dresses remained the same but their position on the body changed, as if detaching themselves from the model
Image credits: Laurent VU/SIPA
Image credits: Laurent VU/SIPA
Bored Panda reached out to Batsheva Dueck who has a YouTube channel dedicated to fashion and lifestyle Cynical Duchess. We wanted to know what she thought of the collection as a person who has an interest in fashion.
The fashion aficionado told us, “I thought the Viktor and Rolf Collection was artistic, satirical and experimental. I love when designers don’t take themselves too seriously, and I feel like this collection was a great example of manifesting the absurdism in the fashion world in a bold and artistic way.”
When asked to interpret the meaning behind it, Batsheva proposed this view, “To me, this collection symbolizes the rigidity the fashion world can create, and subverting that, questioning that. Who really does make the rules in how clothing is supposed to be worn, what constitutes ‘modern and trendy’ and what is ‘old fashioned’?”
It symbolizes “The familiar becoming strange, as the mundane transforms into the absurd and vice versa”
Image credits: Laurent VU/SIPA
People had varying reactions to the dresses. Some looked at them as art, appreciated the innovative idea and were happy that there are creators who can still create fashion that surprises. There were people who just found them funny and didn’t particularly love them or criticize them. Others were pretty confused and didn’t understand what was the point.
We asked Batsheva to try and explain the dresses and the show to people who didn’t get it so she described her own biggest takeaway, which “is the social commentary aspect, satirizing the importance that fashion houses place on themselves and their work.”
It would be her explanation for people who had no idea what they thought, but “would also encourage them to draw their own conclusions, as ultimately, Viktor and Rolf wanted to drive conversation with their pieces” because she feels that “surrealist artworks like these are meant to have multiple interpretations.”
@voguemagazine Upside down, inside out, in all directions—that was the name of the game for #ViktorandRolf ♬ original sound – Vogue
Have you seen the dresses? What did you think of them? Was it a fashion mistake or a fashion statement that will go down in history? Do you see the point in the extravagant garments that can only be worn on the catwalk? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Not everyone understood the message but most of them were able to appreciate the art and the absurdity
I kinda like it, looks like something you'd see in the met. It's not for everyday wear, but art that is displayed by fashion
The last 2 look like they are having an out of body experience.
Load More Replies...I see the designer was inspired by the Sims custom content with messed up meshes
Would anyone actually wear one of these? Some people have way too much time on their hands . Next we'll be seeing models dressed as those paper dolls that you could cut out and colour in paper dresses for..
It's not to wear, it's just for show, if you read the comments it explains it
Load More Replies...I get that this is art, and art takes all form, but this kind of fashion display is a complete waste of people's time, money, and energy for these "clothes" that they have no intention of selling because it is not feasible to wear a "dress" sideways or upside down. And I get that the models get paid for doing this, but I find it very demeaning to put them in this kind of "attire". If they want to display this form of art, display it on a mannequin
Exactly! Not to mention the materials used to make these. They look like they were reenforced so they would stay in place. But stupid nonetheless. 🤦🏻♀️
Load More Replies...They aren't meant to be practical. It's just a form of art. Read the comments, they explain it.
Load More Replies...I have read the explanation. I still don't get it. Ok, yeah, the weird stuff that nobody except maybe Bjork (j/k love her!) would wear is art. Why present it as if it were fashion? For years I truly thought some designers were certifiably insane...
"Art" that isn't anything beyond pretty is ridiculous. And so _not_ art. For example: Gaudi, Hundertwasser, Dalì, Klimt. In fact, I would rather call something art that is not pretty but it inspires me in some way, be it positively or negatively. There is nothing more boring in art than pretty. @Judy, I think what you are talking about is not art. It's decoration.
Load More Replies...I think the line between fashion show and abstract textile art exhibit got blurred decades ago.
It's perfectly ok to ridicule the dresses and understand that it's an art show. You can also ridicule the concept cars if you think it looks ridiculous. Hell, you can understand me and still ridicule me! I CAN be pretty ridiculous sometimes.
The fun thing about art is that everyone has different opinions about it. For instance, these outfits, to me, are pathetic attempts at being "cReAtIvE". They're garbage, plain and simple. But then, couture outfits thrive on people having my reaction to them. Someone that thinks it's just neat probably won't share it around. Someone that thinks it's trash is more likely to show it off to they're friends/followers/whatever.
As a Game dev I know this pain, when you import your new cloth mesh for a character and all the axis are messed up. HELL! We call it the Axis of Evil.
Comfortable and practical, all in the same ummmm, were those things supposed to be dresses?
.. the first one looks like a broom.. there are very interesting and unique
I find the upside-down dress to be most visually exciting and interesting. Many of the others, as pointed out by folks on the thread and in here, look like poor meshing in a video game, so I'm struggling to see beyond that. They could make for some unsettling 'monster' designs though, which I love.
These items are not as much fashion as they are heavily couture. To the point that they'd only be good to wear for that show and possibly Halloween. I see some everyday household influences in a few of them such as the first dress photo looks like a broom on the bottom portion, as the second photo looks like a set of cupcake liners trimmed up in layers, while the third photo, the blue dress, looks like a furniture duster and even more so when shown again in the video, but the pièce de résistance is the dress that looks like they were reminiscing about their youth when some little girls would swing upside-down from the monkey-bars and their dresses would flip upside-down and cover their heads... it's now become a dress, hahaha 😆. These are just some of my thoughts when I first saw each dress. I thought surely someone was tripping balls on some fungi or something when these creations popped into their heads lol. They look like a vision from Hatter during a hallucination.
I kinda like it, looks like something you'd see in the met. It's not for everyday wear, but art that is displayed by fashion
The last 2 look like they are having an out of body experience.
Load More Replies...I see the designer was inspired by the Sims custom content with messed up meshes
Would anyone actually wear one of these? Some people have way too much time on their hands . Next we'll be seeing models dressed as those paper dolls that you could cut out and colour in paper dresses for..
It's not to wear, it's just for show, if you read the comments it explains it
Load More Replies...I get that this is art, and art takes all form, but this kind of fashion display is a complete waste of people's time, money, and energy for these "clothes" that they have no intention of selling because it is not feasible to wear a "dress" sideways or upside down. And I get that the models get paid for doing this, but I find it very demeaning to put them in this kind of "attire". If they want to display this form of art, display it on a mannequin
Exactly! Not to mention the materials used to make these. They look like they were reenforced so they would stay in place. But stupid nonetheless. 🤦🏻♀️
Load More Replies...They aren't meant to be practical. It's just a form of art. Read the comments, they explain it.
Load More Replies...I have read the explanation. I still don't get it. Ok, yeah, the weird stuff that nobody except maybe Bjork (j/k love her!) would wear is art. Why present it as if it were fashion? For years I truly thought some designers were certifiably insane...
"Art" that isn't anything beyond pretty is ridiculous. And so _not_ art. For example: Gaudi, Hundertwasser, Dalì, Klimt. In fact, I would rather call something art that is not pretty but it inspires me in some way, be it positively or negatively. There is nothing more boring in art than pretty. @Judy, I think what you are talking about is not art. It's decoration.
Load More Replies...I think the line between fashion show and abstract textile art exhibit got blurred decades ago.
It's perfectly ok to ridicule the dresses and understand that it's an art show. You can also ridicule the concept cars if you think it looks ridiculous. Hell, you can understand me and still ridicule me! I CAN be pretty ridiculous sometimes.
The fun thing about art is that everyone has different opinions about it. For instance, these outfits, to me, are pathetic attempts at being "cReAtIvE". They're garbage, plain and simple. But then, couture outfits thrive on people having my reaction to them. Someone that thinks it's just neat probably won't share it around. Someone that thinks it's trash is more likely to show it off to they're friends/followers/whatever.
As a Game dev I know this pain, when you import your new cloth mesh for a character and all the axis are messed up. HELL! We call it the Axis of Evil.
Comfortable and practical, all in the same ummmm, were those things supposed to be dresses?
.. the first one looks like a broom.. there are very interesting and unique
I find the upside-down dress to be most visually exciting and interesting. Many of the others, as pointed out by folks on the thread and in here, look like poor meshing in a video game, so I'm struggling to see beyond that. They could make for some unsettling 'monster' designs though, which I love.
These items are not as much fashion as they are heavily couture. To the point that they'd only be good to wear for that show and possibly Halloween. I see some everyday household influences in a few of them such as the first dress photo looks like a broom on the bottom portion, as the second photo looks like a set of cupcake liners trimmed up in layers, while the third photo, the blue dress, looks like a furniture duster and even more so when shown again in the video, but the pièce de résistance is the dress that looks like they were reminiscing about their youth when some little girls would swing upside-down from the monkey-bars and their dresses would flip upside-down and cover their heads... it's now become a dress, hahaha 😆. These are just some of my thoughts when I first saw each dress. I thought surely someone was tripping balls on some fungi or something when these creations popped into their heads lol. They look like a vision from Hatter during a hallucination.
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