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Viktor & Rolf
Mixing the drama of grandly staged opera with the precision-chic of Paris couture, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren are some of the industry's most famous-and often-unpredictable-showmen. Too arty to place in the just-fashion category and too fashion-y to simply be called artists, they meld the two like few others. Collections are never boring affairs, and shows employ fantastical techniques, whether it's models wearing their own cumbersome lighting structures or clothing presented upside down. In 2003, the Dutch duo sent Tilda Swinton and model look-alikes onstage in their "One Woman Show," and famously in 2005, while Tori Amos played the piano and crooned onstage, they showed dresses and suits with collars that appeared to be attached to fluffy pillows, and coats that doubled as down comforters. The year 2008 was a big one for the mild-mannered Dutch duo: The Barbican in London held a well-attended retrospective of their work, Diesel's Renzo Rosso-who already controls Dsquared, Maison Martin Margiela, and Sophia Kokosalaki, among others-took a controlling stake in the brand, and for their spring 2009 show, the boys paved new fashion-show territory by forgoing a live runway and opting instead to broadcast via Internet-with model Shalom Harlow (the only model they used) and a slew of pixels to spice things up. If you put aside the theatrics-and sometimes this is tough to do-it's clear that there are real clothes here, and the fashion community's ongoing support is evidence of that.
