Amsterdam
Holland's witty design duo Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren share their favorite haunts in their hometown
By Kate Novack

Spring 2005 Style & Design
Designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren like to conclude their Paris runway shows with bravura—tap-dancing in identical white tuxedoes or carting out a model with her head tied in a florist's bag to introduce their new fragrance Flowerbomb. But when they're not busy devising their next catwalk spectacle, the Amsterdam-based duo prefer a mellower existence. "Amsterdam for us is a place to relax and be private," says Snoeren, "because fashion is nonexistent there."

A favorite stroll through the city starts at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam's premier museum, and then continues along the Spiegelstraat, a street with stores full of Oriental art, delft tiles and other posh antiques. Next up is crisscrossing the ring of canals—or grachtengordel—that make up the old part of the city. "If you think about when these houses were built, in the 17th century, they were like the skyscrapers of their time," says Horsting. Some haunts along the grachtengordel are Van Ravenstein, one of the city's few designer boutiques, and Lady Day, a vintage-clothing outlet with selections from the '40s, '50s and '60s. "Before we had our own menswear, we bought clothes there," says Horsting. "It's an Amsterdam institution." Another iconic spot on the canals is Walem, a café with a Rietveld façade.

To take in Dutch Art Deco—and the latest popcorn flick—the pair head to the Tuschinski Theater, near the Rembrandtplein, a district named for Holland's homegrown Old Master. One of their top spots for coffee is the Blue Teahouse, a 1930s Functionalist café. "It looks like a UFO," explains Horsting. But mostly they like it for its location in Amsterdam's biggest park, the Vondelpark, where they walk their dogs (Horsting has a Jack Russell, Snoeren a dachshund). For a gourmet fix, they head to De Kas, a greenhouse that was converted into a restaurant and grows its own vegetables. "It's a bit out of the way," says Horsting, "but Amsterdam is so small that nothing's really out of the way." So where do they go when the city gets too small? "When we're sick of it?" replies Horsting. "The airport."

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