Dior Homme : From Indie To Argie
Godfrey Deeny
January 20th, 2008 @ 3:22 PM - Paris
Did Monsieur Dior, a classicist whose greatest claim to fame was creating a New Look collection of huge quantities of fabric in the midst of a post war shortage, ever imagine men going to work, dinner or night clubs wearing ski pants?
We suspect not. But Dior Homme’s men’s wear designer Kris Van Assche certainly has other ideas, as his debut runway collection staged Sunday night for the famed Paris house contained a score of piste trousers.
Van Assche finished his pants with satin piping and paired them with truncated frock coats, tails and a plethora of metallic tunics and jerkins – creating a collection of dark futurist club wear.
One might say that fashion is all about breaking rules and fresh ideas, but why emphasize classicism by staging the show in the holiest of French holies, in a tent practically on top of Napoleon’s Tomb in Les Invalides?
The collection did have some strong looks. Kris injected a romantic moment with feather butterfly bow ties – Papillion to the locals – cut a series of great vertically ribbed shirts and sent out a nattily tough series of bovver boots and rockabilly shoes, many given iridescent hues and finishes like a lot of apparel in the collection. They were pretty much all great. “Elegantly adventurous,” was Van Assche’s definition of the style.
Yet, ultimately, neither the show nor collection worked. The look was too arch - plastering jackets with a swarm of butterflies is another, or rendering tuxedo trousers fit for the slopes. Kris finished with about dozen, balloon-shape, multi-pleat Afghan pants, reprising an idea from his debut collection last summer. But, even these faltered, especially a farcical clowns version in shards of ribbons. Forget about changing gears in these trous.
Moreover, staging the show to chamber music by fellow Belgian, composer Wim Mertens, felt forced and too similar to a presentation of his predecessor Hedi Slimane. The models walked too slowly, the make up was soft horror movie and the space lacking in theatre.
There was a telling pause, in between the last tailored looks and a dozen chaps in white shirts, when the crowd almost applauded, but halted in a silence that felt like a sentence.
“I thought it was rather Dior. Dark, tailored, all about cutting, even if the ski pants were perhaps for an earlier era,” said Karl Lagerfeld, damning with faint fashion praise.
In a sense, it’s been unfair that, precisely because of immense popularity of Slimane, Van Assche is somehow blamed for his predecessor’s sudden departure, even though that was an upstairs management decision. Doubly so, as Van Assche, a sensitive guy, actually was Slimane’s assistant and therefore, somehow beholden to Hedi not to succeed.
It’s a dumb argument and not the way to rate a collection. Van Assche at least had the guts to go for it, and lay down his own groove, even if tonight it did not convince. But one can be certain, just as much as his own collection continues to flourish, he will improve with less pressure.
That said; if Hedi Slimane’s muse was a posh take of Pete Doherty; then Van Assche’s is the model son of a Buenos Aires tango dancer. Just that tonight in Paris the poor chap forgot his steps.
