MILAN — The fashion pack flocked to the 10 Corso Como concept store on Thursday, squeezing in a preview of the new exhibition celebrating designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren between their schedule of shows.
Titled “Viktor&Rolf. Spectrum,” this is the first solo exhibit in Italy dedicated to the Dutch design duo, who hosted the cocktail event and who followed with a private dinner on the eve of the show’s official opening to the public.
“Before the summer we were approached by 10 Corso Como [owner] Tiziana Fausti and [curator] Alessio de Navasques came to visit us in Amsterdam and they invited us basically, and we were thrilled because it’s such an important institution, not just in Milan but in the fashion world in general,” Snoeren told WWD.
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“What fascinates me about these fashion artists — for they are not merely designers, but true artists of fashion in my eyes — is the duality reflected in their collaboration and friendship,” Fausti echoed. “I’m struck by their versatility and the consistency they have maintained throughout 30 years of work. They are extraordinary in this regard: ultimately, they have fused art, garments and contemporaneity into a single language. Nowadays, I have the luxury of choice, and I choose the things I truly like. And I like them a lot,” she said.
Running through Nov. 22, the exhibition spotlights 20 couture looks pulled from the duo’s three-decade-long career, offering an appetizer of the major Paris retrospective dedicated to the designers that is planned for early next year.
Staged in the retailer’s Galleria venue — one of the areas that has been revamped as part of the 10 Corso Como building’s complete makeover — the Italian show was created specifically for the space by the Viktor & Rolf company and conceived as a single large-scale installation curated by de Navasques, who is professor of fashion archives at Sapienza University of Rome and curator of the cultural program at 10 Corso Como.
Compact yet impactful, the showcase and its design strongly leaned on the concepts of mirroring and reflection. The looks were presented in pairs to highlight affinities, variations and visual echoes that reflect the designers’ methodology and approach rooted in the principle of duality.
It aptly opens with two ruffled gowns from the brand’s most recent couture collection presented for fall 2026 and dubbed “Gilded Age 2.0,” displaying the same design in gold and jute versions to embody opposites of decadence and restraint.
But it’s at the entrance that the designers’ favorite piece in the exhibition can be found — and no, it’s not one of their garments.
“What you see here is a picture of both of us by Blommers & Schumm,” said Snoeren, pointing to the scaled-up portrait of the designers. “It was [taken] 25 years ago, I think. And then, on the other end of the catwalk and all the mannequins there’s a remake of this picture. It’s exactly the same, except it’s us now, so 25 years onward. And everything you see in between is like a 3D timeline, so it’s everything we’ve been making and living in between these two pictures.”
Arranged on two parallel mirrored catwalks, the mannequins sandwiched between the portraits spotlight the designers’ idea of fashion as an artistic practice, as well as a form of social critique.
Highlights in the show include looks pulled from the duo’s “Statements” spring 2019 and “No” fall 2008 collections, turning garments into canvases for slogans and messages, and the “Wearable Art” fall 2015 and “Performance of Sculptures” spring 2016 lines, where the clothes separate from the body to assume the independent dimension of a work of art.
A study in materials was highlighted by looks from the “ Vagabonds” fall 2016 and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” spring 2017 collections, hinged on archival fabrics and preexisting garments reassembled into new forms, while their penchant for exaggerated volumes and drama was apparent in pieces pulled from the “Atomic Bomb” fall 1998, “Haute Abstraction” fall 2024, “Couture Prompt” spring 2025, “Surreal Shoulder” spring 2022 and “Angry Birds” fall 2025 collections.
While the deformation of the archetypes of tailoring and power dressing connected the “One Woman Show” fall 2003 collection with the “Power Dressing” fall 2022 one, there’s no doubt the most photographed looks were the tulle gowns from the “Late Stage Capitalism Waltz” spring 2023 show, with their gravity-defying silhouettes detaching from the body.
“It was not so easy to make the selection, for very practical reasons,” Snoeren said. “A lot of our early work is in museums’ collections, so it’s difficult to borrow it.…Also we have a big exhibition coming up in Paris in January,” he added, explaining that eventually the designers’ extensive archive came in handy.
“It’s kind of great to be here and to see 20 highlights, because it’s a very strict selection obviously, there’s a limitation of the space and also the concept required that is not a lot,” Snoeren continued. “But for us it’s great because you see the highlights and you’re not confronted with everything that happened in between, all the stuff that really didn’t work out or it was even a right out failure.”
Horsting and Snoeren established their fashion house in 1993, and it has been controlled since 2008 by Renzo Rosso’s Italian fashion group OTB, which recently raised its stake to 100 percent.
“I hope that everyone that comes to this show — especially young people — will understand creativity and the extent to which art can influence it,” Fausti said. “This has always been the case throughout history: from the Renaissance through to Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian collection, or the work of Salvador Dalí, who created accessories for Elsa Schiaparelli,” she added, referencing the “Dalì e la Moda,” or “Dalì and Fashion” in English, exhibition opened earlier this week at Milan’s Palazzo Reale.
“This is an opportunity to teach, because young people are far more remarkable than we give them credit for. When they possess talent, it is truly genuine. They bring a contemporary perspective — a new, updated vision of things,” said Fausti, who shared the retailer will reach out and connect with schools to encourage visits to the Viktor & Rolf show.
The new exhibition is among the special projects marking 10 Corso Como’s 35th anniversary. It further builds on the retailer’s increased focus on boosting its cultural programming, following in the footsteps of the success of previous shows such as “Yohji Yamamoto. Letter to the Future,” which welcomed more than 20,000 visitors during its two-month run back in 2024.
“We do hold two purely artistic exhibitions per year.…But these [fashion shows] are much more fun. I need to have fun, too — otherwise, what’s the point?” said Fausti, revealing that she has her eyes set on celebrating the work of Issey Miyake next. “That’s another exhibition I’d like to do, and I’ve been working on it for years now.”
