Virtual Shalom Harlow on the virtual catwalk for Viktor & Rolf — The end of the fashion show as we know it?

Long story short: Viktor & Rolf's Spring/Summer 2009 show (above) never really happened — it was entirely computer generated, premiering on the duo's website in October of this year, then making its way onto YouTube in recent weeks.

Amanda Fortini's December 14, 2008 New York Times magazine story about the new new thing in bleeding edge fashion follows.

Catwalk Clones

Viktor & Rolf, the Dutch design duo known for their quirky, theatrical aesthetic, tend to create clothing that, like the Surrealist art it is often compared to, can be high concept and more than a little bizarre. And so, when Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren decided to create a fashion show for the Internet, they began with a typically unusual notion: this would not be an ordinary production, in which footage from a live event is later posted online. This would be a runway show that could exist only in cyberspace.

The spectacle, broadcast in October on the Viktor & Rolf Web site, was staged on a virtual catwalk in a virtual “grand salon” entered by way of a majestic marble staircase. The flashy clothes — geometric-print separates and crystal-encrusted dresses, black frocks set off by furniture-size accessories — are worn by a digital version of Shalom Harlow, the Canadian supermodel, cloned many times over. As she struts down the catwalk in precariously high heels, techno music thumping in accompaniment, she occasionally passes herself; at times, three Harlows occupy the runway. In the grand finale, 12 incarnations of Harlow appear for a curtain call, while an oversize Viktor and Rolf hover above like puppet-masters.

Creating this nine-minute clip of virtual reality required quite a bit of actual work. During two 14-hour days, five cameras filmed at various angles to capture Harlow’s every nuance. The footage was then integrated into a digital backdrop — the real Harlow was transfigured into numerous pixelated versions that were then placed on a pixelated catwalk. And although she — they — walk(s) with a slightly automated gait, the effect is eerily authentic. “We reproduce everything: the reflections, the shadows,” says Eric Tong Cuong, president of La Chose, the Paris-based company that helped create the video.

Of course, as several critics have fretted, the film raises the question of whether the traditional fashion show, with its limited audience, will be rendered obsolete. Rolf dispenses with this worry, noting that the pair is planning a brick-and-mortar show next season. “It will be difficult to replace a live feeling of seeing fabric,” he says. Then again, maybe it won’t. “We can go much further,” Tong Cuong says. “We can make a catwalk on Mars! Or on Venus! Or on top of two buildings, like Spider-Man. Whatever! We can build anything virtually.”