I’m sure I’m not the only one who frequently gets startled by mannequins standing in shops corners, where you would never expect to encounter someone, much less a doll at least one foot taller than you! At the Barbican Art Centre the mannequins walk amongst you, and they are wearing heart-stopping Viktor and Rolf at its very best. The dolls may be a little creepy at times (they are made to Victorian standards with carefully painted porcelain faces), yet there is no saying the exhibition showcasing the ironic and surreal work of Dutch duo is anything less than grandiose.
After walking past a couple of ingenious designs, expect nothing less than to find yourself at the very centre of a Nineteenth Century, (slightly mad?), genius doll maker’s workshop. The large scale dollhouse, created especially for the occasion would send the most mature of fashionistas into a frenzy: it’s every little (and big) girl’s dream, Couture on top! “We are hoping to have built the largest doll house in the world” Rolf Snoeren, and they probably have. The pure white, three story mini-mansion, is said to represents the tradition of the fashion house – the fantasy, the dreamlike unattainable quality of it: the very homogenous system Victor and Rolf undress bare and coolly satirise throughout their career (and the rest of the exhibition).
For over a decade the influential fashion designers have challenged and criticised the fashion world while making an international name for themselves, as conceptual innovators and dramatic designers. The doll house is a prelude to the original key pieces of each of their collection – from Russian Doll to No – displayed on life-size dolls standing on a small catwalk in front of the backdrop projection of the show they are taken from. Every doll is made to look like the model who originally wore the piece on display; at times it seems they have leaked through the wall into the gallery! Genius has not been kept at bay.
Viktor and Rolf are known for creating voluminous forms and unusual shapes and the exhibition is the occasion to see these great fashion moments such as the 1998/99 Atomic Bomb and the atomic mushroom cloud silhouettes achieved with silk balloons. The exhibition does not only show some of the most ingenious clothes ever pieced together, but also brings alive the original scene in which every piece of clothing finds its full glory. It goes from the eerie (with models cloaked with fog, only visible for a moment) to the truly crazy (the 2003 Flowers collection saw highly feminine, chiffon clad models twirling rabidly on the catwalk as if intoxicated by a powerful scent). This showcasing of creative madness is not to be missed.
10 July 2008.
