VPL Has X-Ray Vision… So Watch Your Panty Lines

After naming her line for visible panty lines, it’s fitting that this season at Victorial Bartlett VPL the fluid, sculptural lines were inspired by anatomy. Instead of simply creating body-contouring cuts, she presented prints made from an abstracted X-ray of her own skull.  She also invited the artist Orly Genger to produce a massive black sculpture of hand-knitted climbing rope for the catwalk and necklaces for the models that had the fibrous looping texture of a spinal column. While the steel-colored and black-paneled silk lingerie that model Katrin Thormann wore down the catwalk was elegant and glossy, the real body-consciousness came from Genger’s tentacle-like grey necklace, which looped across Thormann’s chest and under her arms, dividing her physique into sections highlighted by contrast with the rough, alien material.  As in Japanese artist Hokusai’s infamous ukiyo-e woodcut “The Dream of the Fishermn’s Wife,” the long sucker-like forms wrapped around the model’s body amplified her supple skin and the sleek sensuality of Bartlett’s visible bra and panties.