_F_rom the 21st until the 24th of January 2019, Paris became the centre for new haute couture spring collections as international fashion designers demonstrated their new works on the runway. The Dutch presence at Paris’ Haute Couture Fashion Week did not go by unnoticed. Dutch fashion designers such as Iris van Herpen, Viktor & Rolf, and Ronald van der Kemp sparked international attention and press coverage. To get in the mood for Fashion Week New York, we created a comprehensive overview of the styles the renowned designers revealed as their new spring collections, along with the praise from the American press.

Viktor&Rolf

Dutch designer duo Viktor&Rolf presented their latest haute couture collection, titled “FASHION STATEMENTS” on January 23rd, 2019 in Paris.

An investigation into the expressive power of clothing.

This season, Viktor&Rolf present a group of exaggerated romantic tulle dresses in their haute couture spring/summer collection. Volumes are grand but airy, with transparent ruffles, flounces and bows. The colourful collection is entirely executed in 8 kilometers of tulle.

The silhouettes, sculptural and extreme, ranging from various A-lines to hourglass, are astutely expressive: each dress provides the backdrop for a bold text which is executed in layers of laser cut tulle. These texts are mainly one-liners: slogans with the kind of simplification typical of social media captions or souvenir t-shirts. The juxtaposition of these seemingly unrelated elements results in a typical Viktor&Rolf expression of surreal beauty.

Courtesy of Viktor & Rolf

TIME

"The 17 looks in the collection were colorful, confectionary creations made of tulle and embellished with messages inspired by meme-culture, the Internet and the seeming proliferation of statement or slogan fashion in recent years." Cady Lang

Courtesy of Viktor & Rolf

Vogue

"Altogether, the collection showcased Viktor & Rolf in the brand’s finest, sweet-meets-sinister form. As a fashion statement, it was ironic in attitude; historically inspired and Pop in presentation; detail-obsessed and sophisticated in execution." Amy Verner

Courtesy of Viktor & Rolf

Harpers Bazaar

"Giving us the statement pieces we didn't know we needed, Viktor & Rolf debuted a collection of slogan gowns today at Paris Couture Week. With messages like 'I'm not shy, I just don't like you,' 'Sorry I'm late, I didn't want to come,' and 'NO,' the voluminous gowns are here to turn us all into the walking memes we aspire to be." Lauren Alexis Fisher

Courtesy of Viktor & Rolf

Quartzy

"Even people outside the fashion industry are sharing photos of the collection. But it’s not the breathtaking grandeur from Valentino they’re on about, or the otherworldly beauty dreamed up by Iris van Herpen, or the chaotic exuberance John Galliano sent down the runway at Maison Margiela. It’s Viktor & Rolf, who used couture techniques to plop stock phrases such as 'No photos please' and 'I’m not shy I just don’t like you' and 'No' on the fronts of their usual pretty-but-oddball gowns."

Courtesy of Viktor & Rolf

Iris van Herpen

Dutch designer Iris van Herpen presented her latest haute couture collection, titled “Shift Souls,” on January 21st, 2019 in Paris.

The collection was inspired by early examples of celestial cartography and its representations of mythological and astrological chimera. Van Herpen was particularly taken with “Harmonica Macrocosmica,” a star atlas by the German-Dutch cartographer Andreas Cellarius, published in 1600. With the advances in DNA engineering and the first successful creations of human//animal hybrids called ‘Cybrids’, the mythological dreams of Humankind since the dawn of civilization are shifting to the canvas of science. While the scientific and ethical implications of “Cybrids’ are still unclear, this collection expresses the fact that this reality is upon us.

Find more info on ‘Shift Souls’ here.

Courtesy of Iris van Herpen

Vogue

“While her exoskeletons and crystalline structures have always felt far more visionary than the usual display of couture, their future as wearable designs seemed uncertain. By contrast, this collection, titled Shift Souls, expressed lightness through diaphanous silhouettes with hand-plissé volumes, soft patterning, and alluring body focus. This expression of femininity might translate to greater visibility for Van Herpen; and with two full days of shows to come, it set the bar high.” Amy Verner

Courtesy of Iris van Herpen

Harpers Bazaar

“Other sculpturally-shaped looks offered a similar effect, featuring 3-D laser-cut detailing meant to give the illusion of mythological creatures. During a time when most designers are looking to previous decades for inspiration, van Herpen is looking onward to new galaxies.” Lauren Alexis Fisher

Courtesy of Iris van Herpen

New York Times

"Indeed, you know a designer is on to something when it’s the shoes you remember from a runway finale. Amid a swirling black and blue laser beam projection, precise lines of light traced through the vapors along the soles and heels of the shoes to create a glow-in-the-dark effect.” Elizabeth Paton

Courtesy of Iris van Herpen

The Washington Post

"Dutch wunderkind Iris Van Herpen’s couture took flight in the Palais de Beaux Arts in Paris’ chic Left Bank . . . Van Herpen is a couture poet." Thomas Adamson

Ronald van der Kemp

Dutch designer Ronald van der Kemp presented his latest Haute Couture collection, on January 23rd, 2019 in Paris.

Ronald van der Kemp’s new spring 2019 collection at Paris fashion week was a broad collection of revamped and upcycled fabrics into haute couture designs. Van der Kemp demonstrated that even haute couture fashion cannot escape the move to a more environmentally friendly world in which sustainable and recycled fashion is a must. Van der Kemp created haute couture looks from material cast-offs and recycled them into one-of-a-kind designs.

Photography by Shoji Fuji | Courtesy of Ronald van der Kemp

WWD

"Dutch designer Ronald van der Kemp sees striking similarities between the practice of couture and giving a second life to used fabrics. 'When we use upcycled fabrics, like these printed mousselines that we got from the closing sale of a former French mill, we only have about 10 or 20 meters of them,' the designer backstage at his spring 2019 demi-couture show. 'I think it’s great because couture is all about exclusivity. If someone else wants the dress, we’ll have to change the print. Everything is very limited edition.'" Fleur Burlet

Photography by Shoji Fuji | Courtesy of Ronald van der Kemp

i-D

"For Ronald van der Kemp, haute couture also provides the opportunity to turn trash into treasure with his collections that are made from rejected, refused or recycled materials. He works with fabrics that are at the end of their cycle and breathes new life into them." Osman Ahmed

Photography by Shoji Fuji | Courtesy of Ronald van der Kemp

Vogue

"[Celine] Dion’s preferences may not speak for everyone’s, but it was clear that this collection once again highlighted Van der Kemp’s alchemical knack for transforming material cast-offs into singular designs imbued with the codes of couture. Where else this week could you find a floaty floral dress constructed with leftover lampshade gauze (donated, incidentally, by buzzy designer Marcel Wanders’s Moooi studio)?" Amy Verner

Photography by Shoji Fuji | Courtesy of Ronald van der Kemp

Vogue

"Dion’s first time in Van Der Kemp was an eventful one. While posing in the Hotel d’Avaray after the show, she celebrated the designer on Vogue Paris’s Instagram asserting that the clothes made her feel “fierce and elegant." Janelle Okwodu