Viktor & Rolf, Couture, AW15, Paris.
In a show that saw artworks exploding off the wall to form couture gowns, Viktor and Rolf created garments that exaggerated the balancing acts that lie at the heart of all clothing. On everyday clothing, common pattern shapes are regurgitated so that designers don’t have to deal with pesky things like gravity. However, once materials become harder, heavier or stiffer the ability to shape and control the structure of a garment to form extreme silhouettes becomes more and more important.
For example, many familiar garments use the shoulders and the waist as anchor points since garments will rest on certain points of the body once gravity takes its toll. Spaghetti straps may suffice for a lightweight camisole, but once you’re trying to support a dress made of canvas and frames, it makes sense to resort to wide strapping instead.
These wide straps also appear to be used internally in the garments to create cantilever effects, with a hidden D-ring barely visible on the inside of one of the frames. Often the weight of the frames is used to create tension on the fabric in these cases, with the frame fragments straining against each other to spread the fabric volume. On a normal garment, the fabric fullness created by gathers or pleats would fall into soft or crisp folds, but here this fullness is spread to produce bulky, angular hemlines.
Images from Vogue.co.uk»
