Dress

Is fashion art, or is art fashion? That was the question Viktor & Rolf posed with their autumn/winter 2015–16 couture collection. Staged as a performance piece, the runway show featured a series of garments composed of painterly “canvases” affixed to hinged frames wrapped in fabric that suggests the appearance of gilt wood. Several designs were appliquéd with jacquard-woven images of Baroque and Rococo paintings from the Rijksmuseum’s in Amsterdam, including this dress adorned with fragmented portraits and embroidered and appliquéd “paint splatters.” As the presentation progressed, Viktor & Rolf removed select ensembles from the models and hung them like paintings on a wall. Since their debut in 1993, the designers have emphasized the consonance between art and fashion; with this collection they asserted that the boundary between the two remains fluid.