Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren do not put a lot of stock in subtlety. Workout gear—and athleticism in general—was the guiding theme this season, and in case anyone missed the reference, "Physical" was playing on the soundtrack at the Résidence des Pays-Bas in two separate versions. You wouldn't have missed it, though—not with the collection's bike shorts, leggings, and low-slung wide-leg trousers with tracksuit-style stripes down the side. The color palette, veering from candy-colored to acid-toned, was likewise familiar from the gym, and sportif knit tanks and perforated materials a bit redolent of mesh. You could also pick up a certain abstracted muscularity and a kind of bursting energy in the sculpted tops and dresses, all of them gathered and poufed in varying asymmetric ways. That idea didn't need quite so much emphasis: Some of the more measured shapes were pleasing, but when Snoeren and Horsting went bigger and bolder, the result was a look that seemed thrown together willy-nilly. The duo should have attended further to the terrific ribbed knits here, like the simple white singlet with crisscrossed straps on one shoulder. A more subtle approach to the theme, yes, than a bouffant printed minidress that appeared to have been spray-painted at random in yellow, but more direct and more powerful in the end.
