Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren love a concept. They're not the only ones with the style of the 1940's on their minds this season, but they've elaborated on the influence by envisaging a woman who, having entered the workforce while her man was away at the war, has absorbed elements of the breadwinner's wardrobe. This being Resort, she's now feeling out her postwar freedom by the French seaside in emblematic menswear reinterpreted in feminine fabrics like gabardine, cotton drill, and piqué remodeled in silk and viscose. One tweedy-looking topcoat was actually bouclé, and a military poncho and shirt appeared in papery silk. The archness in a Viktor & Rolf collection often relates to some cinematic specificity that feels like a private joke—here it was the specter of Joan Crawford hovering over a sundress in black mesh. The designers' fetishistic devotion to the bygone era extended to Bakelite details and accessories (the plastic was in vogue in the thirties and forties) and wooden-soled platforms.
