What could be better than a cloudy Sunday afternoon (no hangover included) spent in a cosy museum surrounded by skilfully made Haute Couture? Exactly. I spent one of such days at the Barbican in London city. I expected it to be an enjoyable time but it turns out Dutch fashion has special powers. The entrance to the exhibition was rather surrealistic –Russian dolls dressed in layers of fabrics as if made by spiders and headless mannequins in white PVC. But it soon got very interesting with a number or hanging gold organza dresses and a recording of kids reciting the names of the top models of the 90’s —the designers’ reaction to the era’s worshipping of the runway walkers.
That good turn was only the beginning of THE fashion experience between two walls. Mini-reproductions of the designers’ most iconic pieces filled a 16-feet tall dollhouse, some of which could be found large scale later on. However, my favourite part of the exhibition was the successive display on the walls of every V&R catwalk show ever every of which was accompanied by life-size dolls dressed in the most characteristic gowns from every collection. Sitting on the benches set on the sides of the projections, crossing your legs and nodding approval you felt an active part of the front row no matter if the show happened in 1993 or six months ago. The only action to be performed was to walk from one cubicle to another and find a spot on a bench and let be absorbed. An absorption that only saw itself interrupted by the curators shouting the 5-minutes to closing warning. I only missed a couple of runway videos, so no harm done and great happiness found.I ought to confess, though, that I was never a fan of the Dutch pair but The House of Viktor & Rolf opened my eyes and pointed my sight in the right direction. It is baffling how much you can miss out on when you are not aware of the ideas behind the collections and thus, what an incredible experience you can make out of them when you take a bit of time and find what they are all about.
If you were among the lucky ones to pay a visit to the Barbican between June 18th and September 21st you will most certainly know what I am on about. If you were not, I hope everything above left you with a good taste in your mouth.
I’m off.
