For their Angry Birds couture collection for fall 2025, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, fashion’s favorite conceptualists, designed black looks in pairs, one overblown, the other with the stuffing taken out. This was not a political statement, but as I listened to Horsting talk about this inflation/deflation concept, I couldn’t help but think of the inflated egos and deflated hopes that characterize the news these days, and from which this slightly witchy collection offered some welcome respite.
For their latest ready-to-wear collection, faux feathers created from laser-cut organza, which appeared as a jabot on a crisp white shirt and as decoration on a cocktail dress, kept the avian theme alive. More interesting, and solidly pret-a-porter, was the designers’ investigation into denim, and their continued Mackintosh collaboration. A jacket and pants in a dark blue wash was covered in mini bows as if smothered in kisses. Black denim was used for a pair of curve-legged jeans and for others with a straight, slim cut featuring the season’s crumpled pockets.
Sorcery was made present in material and aesthetic ways. The puffiness of Belgian knits was achieved using a shrinking process. Collars proliferated on a white shirt that referenced Viktor & Rolf’s Tilda-Swinton-inspired ready-to-wear show of fall 2003. Waistbands also multiplied, in one case on a very short and sweet LBD. A bubbly and bow-trimmed dress of Elphaba-green satin overlaid with black polka-dot organza mesh had a Lacroix-at-Patou-era exuberance, while an abbreviated pumpkin jacket made of nylon had sleeves with Belle Époque-style exaggeration. Balancing this legerdemain and adding some sex appeal were a trio of long, narrow black dresses featuring a cape-back, shirring, or pleating that would keep your style game on boil sans any toil and trouble.