COUTURE, CRAFT & CULTURE CONVERGE AT THE HIGH MUSEUM

01.08.26. By JANEL ST. JOHN

Few designers have mastered the spectacle of fashion quite like Viktor&Rolf - and fewer still have seen their most audacious creations brought to life by pop culture’s most fearless icons. From Cardi B and Lady Gaga to Janelle Monáe, Rihanna, Doja Cat, Shakira, Hailee Steinfeld and Camila Cabello, the Dutch duo’s couture has become synonymous with moments that stop time: red carpets transformed into performance and garments worn as declarations. Seeing these legendary looks in one place - gathered from the runways and the bodies that made them cultural touchstones - feels nothing short of electric!

Viktor&Rolf. Fashion Statements, now on view thru February 8, 2026 at the High Museum of Art, features more than 100 works and offers a rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience those ensembles up close, revealing extraordinary craftsmanship, scale, and conceptual rigor. What reads as theatrical or playful from afar is, in reality, an exercise in meticulous construction and art-historical fluency. The exhibition places the celebrity-worn designs in dialogue with additional works, underscoring how Viktor&Rolf’s avant-garde vision functions - not just in fantasy, but in real time - on real bodies, in real cultural moments.

AB+DM, Nyibol Dok Jok, Paris, 2025, pigmented inkjet print, Haute Abstraction, Autumn/Winter 2024/25. Commissioned by the High Museum of Art, Gift of Lauren Amos. 

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For more than three decades, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren have operated at the intersection of haute couture and contemporary art, challenging what fashion can communicate and how it can be experienced. Self-described outsiders, they have built a singular practice rooted in contradiction - romance and power, excess and restraint - approaching each collection as a fully realized performance. Fashion Statements, the first major retrospective of their work, is both a celebration of that vision and a must-see exhibition. Organized by curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot and the Kunsthalle Munich in Germany, where it debuted in February 2024, the show affirms Viktor&Rolf’s place not only in fashion history, but in the broader visual culture they continue to shape.

The exhibition is divided into eight chapters and includes garments from more than 30 of their collections as well as selections of their works-in-progress. The works are accompanied by elaborate animated projections designed especially for the exhibition by the internationally acclaimed visual effects studio Rodeo FX. “Fashion Statements...demonstrates how wearable art is among the most provocative and inventive forms of contemporary design,” said High's Director Rand Suffolk. “We’re fortunate to be the first museum in the United States to present this exhibition.” 

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Photo of Viktor&Rolf in the gallery below - ATLANTA, GEORGIA - OCTOBER 08: (L-R) Rolf Snoeren and Viktor Horsting attend Viktor&Rolf. Fashion Statements Exhibition Opening at The High Museum Of Art. Exhibition On View thru Feb. 8, 2026 at High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA. Photo by Derek White/Getty Images for High Museum of Art