The news that Viktor & Rolf is debuting a full wedding collection is surely destined to set the hearts of a lot of fashionable brides-to-be into overdrive. What to expect? Impeccable, full tulle skirts minus a thick, clean slice out of the middle, à la Spring 2010? Given the designers’ taste for the subversively surrealist, it seemed a distinct possibility. But the inaugural season of Viktor & Rolf Mariage is perhaps surprisingly classic in its bent—and unmistakably very, very beautiful.
Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren took up a couple of the house’s most well-known codes as their starting points. Among them: bows and blooms, used to lush effect. The former came to life in various shapes and sizes, running down the spine of a gorgeous full-skirted confection in bonded satin. Elsewhere, a floppy bow gave way to the cape of a one-shoulder column style. One sweet collared gown that had a skirt scattered with silk flowers could easily have taken its name from the pair’s much-loved eau, Flowerbomb. For the bride looking for something less sweeping and more kicky, a beaded A-line minidress that conjured up a little Catherine Deneuve in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, or a spruce, tailored ivory jumpsuit will fit the bill nicely. The lightness of hand was particularly striking here; not an overwrought number in the bunch, but all unflaggingly feminine. And as for that famously conceptual V&R flair? It was subtly palpable throughout, in pieces like a stunning strapless number that cascaded down to an asymmetrical tulle skirt.
