Details September 2007 : Menswear's Heir Apparent: Kris Van Assche

[MissMagAddict]

source | mens.style

Is this Belgian wunderkind designer the future of fashion?

Paris is not revolting. Despite fears of ruin and rampage, the election of the right-wing Nicholas Sarkozy to the French presidency has sparked only small displays of dissent, and these quickly dissipate. But even if the Paris mob had run riot through rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Kris Van Assche might not have noticed. He has his own succession issues to think about.

Van Assche, the designer behind a highly regarded eponymous menswear collection, has just been named artistic director of Dior Homme, inheriting the mantle of Hedi Slimane, who put the French fashion house at the vanguard of a new movement in menswear that accented a severe silhouette, sharply tailored angles, and rock-and-roll styling. It made Slimane a star, not just in fashion circles but also in the world beyond.

On the day Sarkozy assumes his new post, Van Assche is just five weeks into his new job and has two months left to prepare his first Dior Homme collection as well as his own line for the Paris menswear shows. He spends his days crossing the Marais on his motorbike, bouncing between the Dior studio and the atelier of the smaller team that makes up the Kris Van Assche operation.

As Van Assche and I sit in a bland restaurant in an almost deserted part of the 8th arrondissement, it’s gray, muggy, and oppressive outside. We are only five minutes from the tourist crowds on the Champs-Elysées, from avenue Montaigne with its concentration of luxury-goods stores, and from the Plaza Athénée hotel, one of the fashion world’s favorite Paris hangouts. But here it is quiet and discreet.

The industry has had Van Assche marked for greatness for some time, so it’s no surprise to many that the designer’s rise has been so dramatic. Jeffrey Kallinsky, founder and CEO of Jeffrey New York and Jeffrey Atlanta, says, “New talents don’t come along often in menswear, and Kris is definitely a new talent.”

Van Assche, 31, grew up in the Belgian town of Londerzeel, between Brussels and Antwerp. “It was a small town with nothing much going on,” he says. “The less you stood out, the better it was.”

He was an only child, a loner who “spent a lot of time in my room drawing.” At 12, he had something like a divine revelation, which he explains this way: “I was confronted by the power of fashion.” It was the late eighties and the first wave of designer mania: Jean Paul Gaultier was turning fashion into street theater and Comme des Garçons was creating bold new shapes. “When I actually realized that was a job, making clothes, there was no doubt in my mind that that was what I wanted to do,” he says.

His father worked at a car dealership and his mother was a secretary; neither was prepared to foster their son’s interest in fashion. It was left to Van Assche’s grandmother to understand where he was coming from.

 

[MissMagAddict]

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“My grandmother is a very elegant lady,” he explains. “She started making clothes for me when I was 15. She was a huge influence on me.”

At 18, and in a hurry to leave Londerzeel, Van Assche applied to study fashion at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. RAFA instilled in designers a dark, brooding style and a distaste for the conventional architecture of clothing. On graduation, 10 years ago, Van Assche had no intention of working in stuffy old Paris, and certainly no intention of designing menswear, which in the rarefied atmosphere of fashion is considered dull and staid. But Slimane, who had recently been given control of the Yves Saint Laurent menswear line, saw Van Assche’s portfolio and offered him an internship.

Yves Saint Laurent, Paris, and menswear were all about to go through some big changes, and in 2000 Van Assche found himself in the middle of the action as Slimane, having reinvigorated YSL, moved to Dior Homme to become its chief designer and took Van Assche with him.

And there was more to Van Assche’s education than Slimane’s influence. At YSL there were legions of cutters and sewers and craftsmen to work with and learn from. “To go from Antwerp, where the look was still quite gothic and all about heroin chic, to Yves Saint Laurent, which was still doing haute couture on the women’s side, was quite a shock,” he says. “One of the first meetings I had there was with the hatmaker, who was this really old man who could hardly walk. He needed assistants to carry the hats.” But he had been haberdashing for 50 years and he knew his craft. “I thought that Antwerp was the center of the world, and then you meet a man who has made hats for everybody. It’s then that you realize there is something else going on.”

During the two years he was away from Dior, Van Assche continued his aesthetic journey with his own collection. Young designers often indulge in theatricality and crowd-pleasing affectations, but Van Assche places an emphasis on wearability. “I have never been interested in just making clothes for the runway,” he says. “If I design something that is only loved by the press, then I didn’t get it right.

“When I design clothes I always think about the occasion when a guy could wear them, or I think about friends wearing them. People can call that commercial, but for me it is much more of a challenge.”

Even with this kind of ruthless self-editing, Van Assche is confident he has enough creative gas in the tank to handle both design assignments. “Of course I have to find a balance, but people have done it before and people do it now,” he says. Indeed, Van Assche is following the very modern model for the star designer—from Marc Jacobs to Raf Simons—who produces his own line while also in the profitable employ of a great fashion house.

And even though expectations are fearsomely high, Van Assche is ready. “I was really freaking out with my first show for my own collection because I already thought that comparisons [with Slimane] were going to be made. Now I’m not really thinking about it. I’d better not, anyway,” he says.

 

[Deleted member 7575]

I have to say I like his work for Dior more and more, I'm looking forward to next January. I realize, as with most designers, that they need a transition season or two before you can really see what they can do. I can't say I enjoy his own line, which really reflects his personal style. But so far so good considering.

 

[Scott]

^me too! i think he's going to really surprise all the nay-sayers in the coming seasons.

btw,they did get one thing slightly incorrect regarding his graduation date....off about one year as it was in 1998...same class as bernhard and marjolijn van den heuvel.

 

[tricotineacetat]

I do think that by now, Kris has shown us what his vocabulary and his sources of inspiration are all about. There is a sense of nostalgia that he is trying to revive every season, with the subtext being to highlight 'how well people used to dress' (I can't help but feel tired of this lament). So, what does that translate to in terms of clothing? Jogging pants made of suiting fabric, mixed with jersey tanks and a waistcoat on top? The inevitable twisted collar for a little, messy touch?

I think what I am mostly missing is that I don't see his clothes, his vision, having a genuine point of view - there is neither the luxe level in the fabrics or the finishing making his an outstanding product (the prices are still very high and not at all justified with the production quality), nor do his clothes possess a certain inventiveness in the construction or detailing. They sometimes rather fall into the category of stylist tricks or gimmicks, rather than fully thought-out design.

Having seen a couple pictures of the Dior collection in it's entirety (sportswear jackets, denim, etc.), I still can't help but feel that when it comes to commercial merchandise, Kris' (commercial) clothes will look very similar to what Dior Homme shops used to have on the racks before Slimane signed out. It's still the same short Parka, Saharienne, striped Polos etc. that will end up being sold - albeit with 'updated' proportions to make the brand more accessible to a wider audience. I can't help but feel that this was in fact the Dior management's plan, to hire someone with a somewhat very similar DNA, with a precise understanding of what the mainstream customer would want from Dior Homme. This to me, doesn't look like a clean break from what Hedi started with at Dior Homme, but a more commercial 'refinement' of what the brand was aimed at - eventually turning into a major, global luxury goods player in menswear. You certainly can't achieve that with a niche product and taste.

 

[CrEateuR]

Are there any pictures that come with the articles? COuld someone scan it , plsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss?

 

[MissMagAddict]

Are there any pictures that come with the articles? COuld someone scan it , plsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss?

The magazine isn't out yet where I'm at. When I get it & if there are pictures I promise I will scan them