Behind the scenes of Viktor & Rolf's haute couture autumn/winter '19/'20 collection
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“F*ck this, I’m going to Paris,” proclaims the first of three tulle couture dresses that greet us at Viktor & Rolf’s brand new atelier in the western harbour area of Amsterdam. These are, of course, the gowns from last season that became Insta-hits thanks to their meme-able remarks and bright fabrication. The hype, however, didn’t go to Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren’s heads. “There’s always a next season,” says Horsting matter-of-factly. “It is business as usual, but that means starting from scratch, doing something new.” Snoeren adds: “We wanted to focus on trying to get to the meaning of things.”
This season, they’ve taken starting from scratch to heart, teaming up with Dutch artist and textile designer Claudy Jongstra. “We really admire her,” says Snoeren, reeling off a list of Jongstra’s skills and projects: her felt artwork, for which the wool is provided by her herd of indigenous and rare Drenthe Heath sheep; her social projects, helping local children with art; her biodynamic dye garden and self-sufficient farm; her scientific exploration of natural dyes. The list goes on. “The entire production process is taken into her own hands,” explains Horsting. “We have wanted to do something with her for a long time, so we were already in touch. This season it all just came together.”
Although the collaboration is new, the theme is a recurring one for the Dutch duo: sustainability. “We were thinking about how important it is to take positive action,” says Horsting. “There is a general feeling of doom about the environment and society, but with this collection we wanted to make a positive statement; being active about it and actually doing something.”
The collection is split into two parts: a series of dark coats, sculpted from Jongstra’s felt, and a colourful set of dresses and skirt-and-top combinations. These are made from a fabric crafted by the couturiers using vintage garments, pulled apart and appliquéd back together for a bright take on felt via needlepoint rather than wool. “The idea is to take off your black coat and reveal a positive message underneath,” explains Snoeren.
Here and there, the dark fabric bleeds into red or blue, all marks of Jongstra’s mastery of her craft and the designer’s appreciation of it. “The aesthetic of the entire collection is one of handicrafts, of manual labour; we wanted it to feel like it’s been done by hand,” explains Horsting. Embroidery rings of various shapes and sizes also frame the elaborate needlework. “The mood,” notes Snoeren, “is slightly pagan, too, because we are working with embroideries of the moon and the sun and butterflies and owls – a feeling of earth mother.”
The coats – sharp, theatrical silhouettes – are all burgundy black, a natural dye which Jongstra, together with the University of Amsterdam and the Rijksmuseum, has spent the last year rediscovering, decoding recipes that date back to the 15th and 16th centuries. She’s an artist by trade but with the mind of a scientist, passionate about tapping into the heritage that she refers to as “our legacy” and “our global DNA”.
In her idyllic studio in Friesland, an hour and a half away from the Dutch capital, the facilities – labs, raw ingredients and greenhouse – host these historic re-enactments. But it is her 15 years of practical experience that are most valuable. “It has taken 20,000 hours in knowledge to achieve this,” she says, of recreating the natural dye. And that’s before you consider the time required to grow and age the ingredients, getting the wool from the sheep, dying it all, creating the felt and assembling it into the catwalk-ready designs.
“She’s not ironic or cynical,” the designers observe of the artist, who has worked with everyone from John Galliano at Maison Margiela to Google. The pair have changed out of Nikes and jeans into full tuxedos, adding their signature surreal spin to proceedings. Between posing with three of Jongstra’s freshly shorn sheep and admiring the biodiversity of her garden, we visit the farmhouse where the wool is being hand-carded, spun into cotton candy-like bundles, blended with natural linens (merino wool, in this instance), layered and transformed into felt. The process is laborious, but worth it.
Four weeks away from the show and Jongstra and her team are working at full pelt to complete the fabric order. “So much fabric we have to make!” she smiles. “It looks really like theatre. It’s very spectacular, the tactility and the sensory qualities [of the fabric]. It is about valuing the quality of craft, valuing the quality of this legacy of knowledge… It makes you understand why it’s important to show that on a certain platform.”
There may be no tulle or snappy one-liners in this collection, nor will they instantly explode all over Instagram as the previous season did – but all things considered, they really should.
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
Image credit: Anton Gottlob
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