Fashion as a New Materialist Aesthetics: The Case of Viktor&Rolf

In Viktor&Rolf’s fashion show ‘Long Live the Immaterial’ (A/W 2002–3), garments seem to transform into the Manhattan skyline, fireworks, traffic, cloudy skies, or dissolve into the warm and intense colours of a sunset: the blue screen technology – often used in the film and television industry – enabled Viktor&Rolf to project different imageries onto bright blue garments. As the title of this fashion show explicitly expresses, Viktor&Rolf like to emphasise the immaterial aspect of their work.

In this chapter I want to address the question to what extent their work actually is immaterial and conceptual. While the projected visuals in ‘Long Live the Immaterial’ express a sense of immateriality of the clothes as they seem to dissolve into moving images, at the same time the materiality of the garments come to the fore as the intense, bright blue colour bursts out. In addition, rather heavy materials, such as velvet, wool, and crochet, are used in the designs, highlighting the tactile quality of the garments. The fashion show exemplifies the ways in which Viktor&Rolf, since the start of their career, have explored the possibilities of the medium of fashion, simultaneously playing with its materiality and immateriality.