Dutch fashion designers Viktor Horstin, left, and Rolf Snoeren, right, give the final touch to one of their creations worn by a model as part of his Fall-Winter 2010-2011 Ready to Wear fashion collection, presented in Paris, Saturday, March. 6, 2010. AP Photo/Jacques Brinon

PARIS (AP).- Performance art — which saw Dutch design duo Viktor & Rolf strip a pup tent-shaped former supermodel down to the size of a Playboy bunny in front of an audience of thousands — rang in Saturday day four of the City of Light's eight-daylong ready-to-wear week. 

Viktor & Rolf
As the soundtrack of industrial racket clanked overhead, the model, Kristen McNameny, appeared in her tent-like incarnation at the top of the runway. She waddled over to a rotating platform, set into the middle of the catwalk, and Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren started stripping off layer after layer, like the skin of an onion or Russian stacking dolls.

Wearing their trademark plastic-framed nerd eyeglasses, the designers transferred each removed layer — first maxi-greatcoats and oversized fox fur coats; then lighter parkas hung with swinging drawstrings — onto another model, who then walked the catwalk.

After McNameny was pared down to a strapless bustier, the pair repeated the process in reverse: stripping the other models and piling the layers back on to the formerly eyebrow-less top model. The crowning look was an oversized bustle in stiff tulle that was stripped off an evening look and hung round McNameny's neck, like an oversized collar on her industrial refrigerator-sized greatcoat.

It was a novel exercise, and the crowd of fashion insiders — many of whom had sat through more than 100 conventional shows in New York, London and Milan over the past month — hooted enthusiastically.

But the spectacle itself distracted attention away from the clothes, which were basically big, bulky and black. (Though it must be said, they were remarkably engineered: Enormous when they were peeled off McNameny, Snoeren and Horsting transformed them into a model-tiny size through a system of zippers and drawstrings.)

Still, perhaps keeping the clothing in the background was exactly the point of the exercise. By: Jenny Barchfield, Associated Press Writer. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.

Dutch fashion designers Viktor Horstin, left, and Rolf Snoeren, right, give the final touch to one of their creation worn by a model. AP Photo/Jacques Brinon

Kristen McMenamy (FORD)

Karlie Kloss (NEXT)

Olga Sherer (NATHALIE)

Patricia van der Vliet (ELITE)

Mirte Maas (WOMEN)

Jac (IMG)

Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren. Photos: Marcio Madeira / FirstView.com