Kris Van Assche (Q4960)
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Kris Van Assche is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Kris Van Assche |
Kris Van Assche is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
"It's like an urban warrior—taking camouflage out of a military context and putting him into the city. It's a guy on a bike, not a guy with a gun." This was Kris Van Assche's excellent summation of his collection. The subsidiary detail is that Van Assche appropriated the eye-confounding patterns of camouflage, blew them up, and used them as decoration in myriad manners. The upshot was that, rather than protecting you from exposing yourself, Van Assche's camo deterred invisibility.The thesis was expressed as plain, irregular-shaped panels on suits, swirling knitwear, and shiny parkas. For those urban warriors who want to go dark, Van Assche presented un-dazzled pieces, too—although any sensitive streetwear spotter would have noted the sneakers in a heartbeat, as well as the mod-touched Fred Perry collar flashes. There were some alarmingly desirable clothes here. Even when built for going under the radar, Van Assche's work emits a signal.
23 January 2015
"I wanted to return to that time in a man's life when he is stepping out into the world, maybe for the first time, and he is eager to conquer it," said Kris Van Assche of his quietly rebellious Spring collection for men, a particularly special one for the Antwerp-schooled Belgian. It marked his tenth year and twentieth eponymous collection (he also serves as creative director for Dior Homme, alongside Raf Simons on the women's side), which he noted with a tinge of incredulity in his voice. But just as quickly, he cautioned, "This is not a retrospective show at all."Indeed not. Rather, Van Assche, a known quantity, explored uncharted territory with new confidence. He skillfully twisted and tweaked his well-understood slim silhouette, adding unexpected details like knee vents and paring down Fair Isle knits to be so thin they could be a second skin. He also layered contrasting jackets, such as a mosh-pit blouson worn over a double-breasted coat, and styled them with beaded necklaces and bracelets, recalling surf culture. Colors came in both pleasant shades—sky blue, slate gray, salmon—and pleasantly discomfiting options, most notably shiny antique bronze and avocado drab.A sense that things were not as they seemed permeated throughout, stemming from a willingness to push suiting's boundaries. Suit jackets were rethought in hybrid ways; skinny ties disappeared into shirting halfway down the front; and trousers came with horizontal-bar inserts and were gathered at both the waist and hem. The high-minded experimentation derives from the designer's closely held ideology that a man's clothing is the outward expression of his personality, even a substitute for it. Or as Van Assche explained, with typical dry, Dadaistic clarity, "Hoodies are not hoodies; jeans are not jeans."
26 June 2014
The best part of a John Baldessari piece is that you can almosthearthe color land on his black-and-white photographs and photomontages with a splat. Kris Van Assche was looking at Baldessari's work to inspire his own this season—in particular,Man Running,which gave the collection its title, Run—and a jolt of color hit Van Assche's black-and-white looks with that same comicwhomp.It was, in an entirely complimentary way, almost funny.Humor is not a cardinal virtue at the house of Van Assche, whose unsmiling seriousness of purpose can sometimes make it seem like the designer travels with his own personal Belgian rain cloud overhead. But there was a freewheeling, cartoony element in the collection he showed today. It was there in the colors that blotted the looks, literally overlaid in the Baldessari way—puffed-up tanks or tops pulled right down over other pieces. It was also present in the way that Van Assche inflated elements of traditional menswear, making macro hound's teeth appliqués of houndstooth patterns, chevrons of supersize herringbone prints, and buttons of silk-knot cuff links. Baldessari may have been the stated influence, but one shrewd observer saw a hint of Claes Oldenburg in the supersizing. That fit, too.Van Assche politely declined to pursue that line of inquiry. After the show, he was banging on his usual interpretive drum—how he wants to mix sportiness into traditional menswear. He conceded that this season he mixed pop in as well. You felt that not only in the colors but also in the new proportions of the slightly shrunken jacket with its rounded lapels, the shirttails peeking out from under vests and sweaters, the longer stretched-out pants. It was less "Run" than fun (the directive, Michel Gaubert said after the show, that the designer had given him for the soundtrack). The athletic stringency Van Assche often favors gave way to a looser-limbed bounce.
16 January 2014
For years, Kris Van Assche has been preaching the gospel of sport-meets-suit. For Spring, that idea has run rampant over the runways. Every designer out there is feeling the pull of sportswear. It's offered a bit of context for the ideas Van Assche has long been tweaking. And with one of his strongest collections in seasons, he finds himself part of the pack."These young guys who used to be mega into sportswear," he said backstage after the show, "they have the great eye for detail. They turn out to be the best dressed." His clothes still do, as they always have, skew very young. But his own appreciation for the finer details of sportswear—the snap buttons, the functional pockets, the ease of elastics—worked well here when transposed to the context of the traditional men's wardrobe. He spliced the two codes, calling the result Cognac Sport—cognac for the color of men's traditional leather goods. His pull-on anorak came in piqué cotton like an evening shirt; other versions, with zip pockets on the front, the sort bike messengers use, came in suiting fabric, worn with tailored shorts. Elsewhere, he used the symbols of menswear, from the crocodile of fine accessories to the polka dots of a tie or pocket square, writ large. Croc-knit sweaters were a sporty deflation of luxe; croc-embossed backpacks and gym bags, even more literally so.A few patterned pieces felt at odds with what Van Assche called the "anti-dandy" spirit of the collection, but the strongest pieces had a bright, solid clarity, the sort that radiates, without regard for class or caste, from the classics of the aristo wardrobe as much as from the world of sport. He was remembering fondly that for his first show nine years ago, he accessorized his looks with Adidas Stan Smiths. He's honed his touch since then, but the spirit remains. Not only remains but sets down roots: Van Assche's first Paris boutique opens on Rue Saint-Roch this week.
27 June 2013
Rough, Tough, 'N' Rugged.Kris Van Assche seems to believe it's his designer's duty to remind us that adult clothing can have these youthful attributes. Duly noted. The opening look of his Fall collection announced it again, by splicing into a sober black suit a bit of brash sweatshirt. The show continued along these hybrid lines. There were the subtler gestures, with pieces made in not-the-usual fabrics—track pants in suit wool, say—and then the less subtle ones, where hoodies were sutured to suit jackets, knits turned to shirts, collared shirts with ties into pull-on jumpers. Van Assche insisted it was a gesture of defiance, and it was delivered with the light touch of a schoolyard brawl. "You are what you wear," he said. "Simple as that. Menswear is so full of rules and codes. This is about not getting put in a box." Or getting put in every box. Van Assche's boys are walking palimpsests.
17 January 2013
"Every guy needs his white T-shirt," said Kris Van Assche, who offered a show's worth of variations on the theme. "The whiteT-shirt is the real thing. It's one of those basics that's undeniably sexy." Van Assche's tees were either sport/tailored mashups, as in the collared shirts with T-shirt backs, or bits of trompe l'oeil sleight of hand, like one-pieces made to resemble layers of shirt and tailored jacket. The hazard of riffing on a basic, however, is that the results can look rather basic. Worn with pleated shorts or jeans, or outerwear given shape by gathered backs, the looks rarely rose above the day-to-day. Some tricky bits aside, that made for an unusually wearable collection. But its focus felt ultimately like a hindrance.
28 June 2012
Before we knew them as the 99 percent and the 1 percent, we separated the workers of the world by the color of their collars: blue and white. Kris Van Assche erased the separation. For Fall, he staged a confrontation-in-clothes between laborers and professionals. Workwear and tailored clothing, the traditional uniforms of each, met in single looks. "For me, both are realities of menswear, and I get inspired by both," Van Assche said after the show.It's not only on the catwalk that the haves are meeting the have-nots. Wall Street has been occupied, and even post-Zuccotti Park, the tension between classes continues to simmer worldwide. "The blue-collar people used to need protection gear, and I'd say now bankers and white-collar people need protection gear," Van Assche said. He offered it in the form of strap-closed blazers, quilted jackets, coveralls, and blindered glasses. A collaboration with the denim company Lee introduced five-pocket trousers in stiff workman's denim.This was an image of evolution, not revolution. The pairings Van Assche proposed wove together elements of sporty and tailored, blue collar and white collar. "I think in the end that's what we'll all end up looking like," he explained. Look by look there were hits and misses, but the show overall pulled cleverly from divergent traditions. The mash-ups were grounded by the restrained color palette: gray, white, black, and, interestingly, a color quite close to Bill Cunningham blue, the same as the Parisian street-cleaner-uniform coat favored by one of the original high-low mix-masters, the street-style photographer for the rareifiedTimes.
19 January 2012
Kris Van Assche has just returned from a trip to L.A., and while the Golden State didn't do much to lighten up his preferred color palette of charcoal, bone, black, and white, it did set him to thinking about the city's young rebels on the move. Van Assche is perseveringly interested in the transition between young manhood and manhood, a juncture bridged, he's lately come to think, by the purchase of a first suit. It's become a mini-mission of his to offer a kind of starter's model: sporty enough for the kids they were, professional enough for the adults they're going to be. "I am always interested in what used to be your childhood dreams as you move into real life," Van Assche said backstage after the show. "I imagined all the guys in Santa Monica. They need to be able to ride their bikes."Hence the sportification of the suit. Today, they came with pants cropped high (the better not to stick in your spokes?) and jackets soft enough not to feel constricting. He showed them with reworked polo shirts whose sleeves reached to the elbow, modish little trilbies, and bug-eye shades. Laserlike focus has always been a KVA hallmark, but while there were some sleek silhouettes proposed, by the end, the variations on a theme dragged on a little long. The forever-young message became a lecture. And the lecture made you wonder: Is it really that bad to have to grow up?
23 June 2011
The suit has menswear designers in its thrall this season. Its latest celebrant isKris Van Assche, a designer not heretofore renowned for biz casual. And not here, either, it turns out. But boys become men, and men need suits. "I was thinking of these guys who are 20, 25; they've all been wearing sweatshirts," he said after the show. "They need to get into their real life and buy a suit and go to work. It's about turning this really adult piece into something cool. The suit is really everywhere, but they're never comfortable, they're never cool, and they're never easy to wear."If his suits aren't totally recognizable as suits, they are recognizably KVA: loose but angular, dark, protective. There's an armored look to the designer's clothes. They reveal very little, and they open with difficulty. Traditional suits tend to be defined by their buttons—two-button, three-button, or, heaven help us, four, or more—but Van Assche's close with zippers or, more often than that, with covered plackets that make them seem seamless and impenetrable. They creep up to cover the throat. And when they don't, he'll happily make a knit turtleneck dickey (no other word for it) to do the job.It's a dog-eat-dog corporate world out there, an old saw Van Assche takes nearly literally. Protect your neck.
20 January 2011
He was kidding when he said he'd called his 12th collection Ashes as a pun on his name. What Kris Van Assche really had in mind was the dust on a working man's hands and clothes at the end of the day. Such a humble notion was reflected in pieces that had the plainness of a janitorial uniform, and a backdrop that looked like nothing so much as the biggest roll of toilet paper in the world. Offered in black and gray, the clothes had the appropriate utilitarian color scheme. Toward the end, they came blotched with ink or paint, as if there'd been an accident in the work closet. And they were accessorized with apronlike add-ons and pouches, along with saddle and messenger bags of all sizes that also emphasized utility.In many of his collections until now, Van Assche has shown himself to be a dyed-in-the-wool romantic. Here, he injected some poetry into his working man's uniform with sheer fabrics, pants that tied in a big bow, and some après-work black leather.
24 June 2010
Style.com did not review the Fall 2010 menswear collections. Please enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for our complete coverage of the Spring 2011 collections, including reviews of each show by Tim Blanks.
21 January 2010
"With everything that's going on, it had to be about what's essential," Kris Van Assche said backstage before his show (referring, of course, to the economy and its effects on fashion, in general, and on his own business, specifically). For the Belgian designer of Dior Homme, what's essential is the menswear element. For Spring, he decided to drape his suits and to approach dressmaking with a tailor's hand. The opening L.B.D., for example, came in a crisp cotton with short sleeves puffed stiff below pinched shoulders. A pair of suits, by contrast, were sashed at the waist with the tails of the shirts worn beneath. A soft, swagged feeling came across via jackets tucked into trousers and pants with smocked elastic sweat-suit waistbands.As ideas go, it was a small one upon which to base a collection. And in just three shades—black, white, and gray—it didn't make for a sizzling runway show. But there may be customers out there for Van Assche's minimal approach, especially in a season when few others are focusing on tailoring.
3 October 2009
Style.com did not review the Spring 2010 menswear collections. Please enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for our complete coverage of the Spring 2011 collections, including reviews of each show by Tim Blanks.
25 June 2009
"I wanted to do something that felt right, not just on the catwalk but in any situation," Kris Van Assche said backstage. This designer has been known to indulge an eccentric notion or two, but today he produced a generally straightforward collection, rendered in black and white, of shrunken-down clothes borrowed from a guy's closet. The necessary feminine element came courtesy of necklaces and bracelets made from gold and silver military ribbons.Sharp-looking cropped jackets and slouchy long johns (modified from Van Assche's men's show) were teamed with either sheer button-downs or thin turtlenecks. Wrapping was a unifying theme, with buttonless trenchcoats, blazers, and vests tied off at the waist. A few gaucho-style pants cinched above the ankles added a bit of extra swagger, but the wool trousers with apronlike sheer silk panels came off like a silly runway experiment. The series of caftans that opened the show also seemed like a ploy for catwalk attention.Here's the thing: The clothes that Van Assche mostly focused on today aren't the kind to generate a lot of heat at a fashion show. But they do look like the sort of pieces that a fashionable customer might wear day in and day out. In that regard, this was a case of mission accomplished.
3 March 2009
No one could ever deny that Kris Van Assche sticks to his guns with his love of all things Latin American, but his fascination tends to be more intriguing than the fashion that results from it. This season, for instance, he was drawn to thechola, the Mexican gangbanger's moll. At least that was one interpretation of the black and midnight blue palette, the tank tops and baggy shorts (more boxer's shorts than boxer shorts), and the hard-edged styling touches like dark makeup and teardrop tattoos. But that toughness just came across as flat-out odd. Elsewhere, Van Assche honed his signatures: the floor-sweeping lengths, here in wrapped skirts, and the interplay of masculine and feminine elements, like a pinstriped jacket matched to a tiny skirt. A plain black pantsuit turned to reveal a waistcoat back to the jacket. Van Assche called his collection "Sang Bleu," presumably a reference to the blue blood of aristocracy, but "blue blood" also connotes anemia, and, indeed, there was something anemic about an entirely sheer slubbed-gauze gown. Ship it with a slip? Not likely.
26 September 2008
If consistency is a virtue, then Kris Van Assche is guaranteed a place in heaven, so true to his original vision does he remain. For a retiring lad from damp, chilly Antwerp, he's mightily obsessed with hot Latin blood. "Amor o muerte": That was the key to his latest collection, though quite how it was supposed to play out in the clothes was obtuse. As usual, the man he imagined was an incongruous cross-generational hybrid: an Old World gent who'd sit around in the plaza with garters on his shirtsleeves and a rose in his buttonhole, and a barrio boy—high-tops, baggy shorts, waistband slung low. A hybrid vibe underpinned outfits like a gray suit with cargo shorts for pants, an athletic top with cable stitching, and a tuxedo jacket with a waistcoat back.This marriage of the formal and the casual is something Van Assche has been trying to broker since he launched his own label, but it wasn't completely successful this time around, possibly because the mix is still coming across as crisp and proper as communion wear. (The designer is a dry cleaner's dream.) Van Assche's recent guest editorship of the worth-tracking-down Antwerp biannualA Magazinespotlit his appreciation of the sheerly physical, as did his finale here of bare-chested boys in "formal" activewear. He needs more of that looseness, less of the prissy poetry.
26 June 2008
What to make of Kris Van Assche? The way he offered his womenswear—26 looks on seven models in an art gallery in Le Marais—was positively humble compared to the Sturm und Drang of his Dior Homme show or the conceptualized presentation of his own men's collection. And it was very much the better for it.Though he insisted there was "no big concept," he was inspired (not for the first time) by the tango, by that "unique balance between a very strong woman and a very strong man." There was a constant interplay between masculine and feminine: a man's suit, say, in gray woolen silk worn with the sorts of tops with elasticized necklines that the Latin love goddess Rita Hayworth made her own. There were obvious menswear references in a retooled peacoat or a black waxed-leather biker jacket, but Van Assche also masterfully worked a liquid-silver silk into multi-pleated shifts (knee-length and floor-length) that were entirely womanly. The sculptural volumes here were infinitely more successful than the ultra-pleats he is so fond of in his Dior menswear. Even so, a little levity is surely not too much to hope for (though it's probably futile at this point, given that one of the most striking pieces for Fall was a jacket in ottoman silk of an almost armorlike weight).
24 February 2008
The rows of washing machines lining the walls of the venue excited a modicum of curiosity, especially given that Kris Van Assche had let it be known his collection was based on the clothes he would save if his house was on fire. In other words, his favorite pieces. Fire and water—would they produce steam heat? Well, no, because Kris' favorites were very much like the items that many young men fancy in their daily dress: worn denims, a jean shirt, plaids, a parka. Van Assche being a fashion designer, there were things that weren't quite so prosaic, like the black velvet jumpsuit that accompanied a gray wool blazer, or the scarf that doubled as a waistcoat (worn with distinctly designer gray flannel combats), but he mostly opted for the casual over the conceptual, which was an improvement over earlier presentations where his Grand Statements tended to trip him up.So casual was the styling, in fact, that trouser legs often caught on boots and the tech high-tops that were the primary foot look. One leg up, one leg down used to be ghetto code for an illegal activity, but Van Assche claimed it was all about "getting ready in two minutes." He did, however, amplify the effect with a curious hitched ankle on some of his pants. "Élégance mal rasée—unshaven elegance—was the designer's own tag for outfits that combined a tux jacket with black cords, or a shawl-collared jacket in glen plaid with jeans. Such mash-ups are scarcely anything new (there's a definite Marc Jacobs edge to them), but word of mouth suggests that Van Assche has managed to connect them to a style-hungry audience all his own—so why did he send out a T-shirt with the surly slogan "Fuck You All"?By the way, the models stripped at the finale and threw their clothes in the washing machines. No time for dry cleaning.
17 January 2008
After a few earnest but flawed seasons in the menswear arena, Kris Van Assche just might be proving that womenswear—his original ambition, as it turns out—is what serves his talents best. An expressed desire to "keep things small" meant there was no big show, no leaden theme, to weigh down his third effort on the women's side: It was just a simple presentation of 25 looks, with six models. The designer's launchpad was, as usual, elements from his menswear, with a feminine spin. Swiss cotton shirtings were reconfigured as almost sheer shorts or trousers. Piqué was cut into a neat little jacket. The silk of a tie was used as banding on a full black skirt. And a shawl-collared tuxedo vest was revealingly slashed from stem to stern in the back.Van Assche's love of all things Latin American also helped feminize the look. Frida Kahlo was referenced in the emphatic eyebrows and slicked-back, orchid-adorned hair (and in the parrot motif embroidered on crisp cottons that could otherwise double as bedsheets). Elsewhere, the designer did pretty well at sublimating such an obvious influence. Mexico provided the sulfurous yellow, sky blue, acid orange, and Catholic white of his palette; it also echoed in the floor-sweeping silk skirts and in the elasticized necklines and tied waists of voluminous smocks. But irrespective of those touches, the collection could be read, simply, as a contemporary take on slouchy ease. Case in point: Van Assche likes to put pockets in everything, even the most billowing skirt, so hands always have a place to hide.
30 September 2007
For his sixth collection, Kris Van Assche claimed inspiration from the photographs of August Sander, because he felt Sander was so astute at capturing the essence of both aristocrat and farm laborer in his work of the early 20th century. But such a generalist's skill eluded Van Assche himself as he offered clothes that were more thought than felt. There was something of the fashion student, rather than the designer, in both his proportions and his presentation. Where one might logically expect ease and confidence at this point in Van Assche's career—especially when he has been given the plum job of the creative directorship of Dior Homme following Hedi Slimane's departure—there was instead an uncertain exploration of a somewhat old-fashioned formality, best exemplified by what might logically be considered Van Assche's signature item: the waistcoat. It appeared every which way but loose.In the past, the designer has come down hard for romance, in the shape of a tango-dancing, rose-bearing, lovelorn swain. That same character (why does he feel like a country boy?) reappeared here in a full-sleeved poet's shirt, with a large-lapelled waistcoat barely reining in his emotional excess. He also sported voluminous multipleat trousers or what looked like a pajama suit of ticking-stripe baggy shorts and cropped jacket or long johns with a laced waistband. In other words, there was something slightly costumey about his garb. The show climaxed with a weirdly misjudged finale that saw one model sporting a strange little titfer, another a dunce cap, still another a comedy bow tie. It's possible this stems from Van Assche's sartorial historicism, and that may simply be a phase. Van Assche called his show "Souvenirs" and gave every invitee their own, a sachet of lavender. Lavender famously induces a good night's sleep—a little relaxation wouldn't hurt him at this point.
28 June 2007
He has painted himself as menswear's hopeless romantic, with the tango, the roses, the swooning swains, and—in his latest show—Elvis crooning "Can't Help Falling in Love." But you'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at Kris Van Assche's sentimental posturing. And maybe the designer has begun to understand the potential for ridicule, because his new presentation was a much more down-to-earth affair. There were some iffy stylist's flourishes—a wayward tiara, a few too many necklaces, shirts untucked just so on one side—but there was also a moment or two where Van Assche made the most of the hybrid of formal dressing and sportswear that continues to be a riptide in men's fashion.The loose bow tie trompe-stitched on a white shirt perhaps wasn't the best idea (paging Anthony Michael Hall), but another white shirt with a piqué-bib front and a black-striped knit collar was a striking distillation of the dress-up/down dialogue. White piping snaked across black trousers to create a bias-cut effect, and the seaming of a pinstripe jacket fit into the season's fascination with a new geometry of the body.When Van Assche went street, layering a tiny waistcoat over a plaid shirt over a white shirt (with a whacking great pair of sneakers on the model's feet), he simply proved that he's better off in the salon. But then, what else would you expect from a designer who offered utilitarian cargo pants in lustrous cappuccino-colored velvet corduroy?
26 January 2007
Richard Gere on the invitation, Blondie on the soundtrack, a dedication to Lauren Hutton… Kris Van Assche has clearly been brooding onAmerican Gigolo,and the resulting show was an example of concept tripping over collection. In a celebration of female empowerment that seemed slightly at odds with that movie's icy portrayal of lonely, aimless housewives, Van Assche saved his front row for women only, and offered up a collection of clothes for a day in the life of a man he essentially envisaged as a kept boy. Like Julian, the gigolo Gere played with perfectly calibrated charm, this boy arose in his underwear, worked out, lunched, played tennis, had dinner, and accompanied his client to the opera. All of which gave Van Assche a chance to display a full repertoire of his signature sleek tailoring (from dressy athleticwear to jackets with a curious peaked shoulder) and to inject design flourishes like the odd red accent or the epaulettes on a polo shirt.With a little more editing and a tighter focus, he might have been onto something, but he wasn't content to leave things there, because he also used this occasion to introduce his new line for women. In keeping with his theme, the ladies doing the keeping were portrayed by a posse of runway faces from a decade or so ago. That meant Marpessa, say, in a three-piece suit. Afterward, the designer talked about how proud such women would be to be seen with a handsome young guy, picking up his bills and so on. One wondered whether Tilda Swinton, hurrahing from the front row, would agree.
5 July 2006
In a Paris season characterized by arcane inspirations, Kris van Assche found his inles hommes-fleurs, a tribe of Arabian warriors who unabashedly adorn themselves with flowers. He was equally turned on by photos of elegant old Van Assches from the Belle Epoque. So the central idea was that there are different ways for men to be masculine.Unfortunately, the show itself didn't serve this notion as well as it might have. Michael Nyman's soundtrack forThe Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Loverprovided a musical underlay so insistent it would have induced madness had the show lasted another ten minutes. And a storm of windblown rose petals midway through proved equally distracting (a mannequin made his way through the blizzard with his trench held over his head).We already know Van Assche is both rigorous and romantic, so the formal lines of the Belle Epoque did in fact agree with him. There was something of the night in his tailoring: the dark blue suit with a sheen, the double-breasted coat with a little half belt, even the tweed coat piped in black. His indigo jeans were silk, not denim, the kind of dressy touch that is practically a signature.But once thehommes-fleursinvaded the catwalk, the tone toughened and the clothes roughened, not necessarily for the better. A leather blouson was paired with sweats, a serape was slung round a bare torso. And then, of course, there were those floral adornments. A different way to be masculine? Not there yet.
26 January 2006
Two pieces of stage-play from Kris Van Assche's presentation encapsulated the mood of his collection. One grave young model walked the runway with hat in hand like an earnest suitor; another carried a jacket as a bullfighter carries his cape. There was a romantic vulnerability to these images, but they were also unambiguously masculine. The toreador, the tango dancer—these were Van Assche's inspirations. "I love the ceremony of getting ready to dress," he said afterward, and that notion dictated a certain formality to the clothes, as in a gray suit with shawl-collared jacket. (The bare feet and espadrilles were a stylist's indulgence.)Volume was a key element, as in full trousers that puddled on the floor, and in a huge, gray-striped voile shirt. There were tricksy flourishes, such as trousers scrunched up and buttoned at the knee, and the designer explored asymmetry in a white suit jacket with a single shawl collar or another epauletted jacket in light gray with one dark sleeve. But the general feel was one of quietly banked fires of passion—for the finale, an accordionist played while an urgent horde of young men scuttled down the runway in white tanks, at least one bearing the image of Carlos Gardel, father of the tango.
7 July 2005
The first menswear collection from Kris Van Assche, a Belgian designer who spent six years under the tutelage of Dior's Hedi Slimane, was one of the most buzzed about debuts of the season. The line's superbly tailored, sporty designs—including three-piece suits with trim coats and low-cropped pants, thrown over white sneakers and topped off with fedora hats—exhibited just the right mix of street and chic. Undone ties, baggy trousers, and ill-fitting collars added to the laissez-faire feel of the gray-, black-, and white-toned collection, as did the series of overalls, padded leather jackets, and V-neck sweaters. The Royal Academy of Arts grad closed the show with a trio of older male models, underscoring the agelessness of these designs, while also announcing the arrival of a fresh new talent.
28 January 2005