May 12, 2013 |
The kris, according to Wikipedia, is “an asymmetrical dagger most strongly associated with the culture of Indonesia, but also indigenous to Malaysia, Thailand and Brunei. Both a weapon and a spiritual object, kris are often considered to have an essence or presence, considered to possess magical powers, with some blades possessing good luck and other possessing bad. Legendary kris that possess supernatural power and extraordinary ability were mentioned in traditional folktales such as those of Mpu Gandring, Taming Sari, and Setan Kober”. The Kris is also Kris Van Assche, creative director of Dior Homme.
We like to imagine that, on the day he was born, his mother looked down upon him and saw a sparkle in his eyes that hinted at his future, at the razor-sharp tailoring he was to become renowned for. And so she chose to name him after the kris, and not, say, Kris Kristofferson (as far as we are aware), knowing that one day his extraordinary ability would be mentioned in folklore, too. Though, to be honest, she probably just thought it was a good name. We were once told that a good name needs to be short and international with an R. Like Kris.
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “Do you have a thing for men in uniform?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “Well, it’s true last season’s collection was inspired by the military, while this season was inspired by the navy.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “So, do men in uniform turn you on?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “I am sure my assistants would say I have a thing about discipline. I do like law and order, but as far as the army is concerned, my fascination starts and ends with the uniforms. Ever since my arrival at Dior Homme five years ago, I’ve mostly concentrated on tailoring, so I wanted the AW12/13 season to be about ‘sportswear’ in a very Dior Homme way. I did a lot of research and realised that military uniforms and jackets could allow me to use a tailoring approach in sportswear, since they are so formal and structured. So, I started using all I had learned about tailoring and applying it to the sportswear.
“I also particularly enjoyed using our know-how and high-quality fabrics to produce coats and jackets with a military allure. Those pieces are normally very stiff and uncomfortable when they are the real, original military thing, but they became fluid and luxurious in our ateliers. But there’s nothing aggressive about these clothes, of course. It was a metaphor for the contemporary urban soldier – much more about Wall Street than war.
“I admit I like pushing the boundaries and codes of the male wardrobe – I like to resist the fact that menswear and its uniforms are full of rules that one is not supposed to alter. And I have always liked the technical part of menswear. I don’t like ‘ornamentation’. I like the construction, the finishing, and all the technical details that contribute to a piece being practical or qualitative. I like ‘technical beauty’.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “Have you ever been tempted to enlist?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “Well, when I was a child and still living in Belgium, serving one year in the army used to be an obligation. That changed just one year before I turned 18, which probably saved me from this experience.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “What was the starting point for this collection? Was it the navy itself? Or was it the colour blue?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “Fall was all about officer green, but this season is all about navy blue, with the reinvented blazer as the starting point. I like the challenge of taking a very classic piece as a starting point and then turning it into something exciting. I proceeded in the same way at my own label, where it all started with a basic, white T-shirt.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “Do you like blue?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “Yes, I do. But I also love black, grey, white and a touch of red.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “Do you have a blue aura?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “You tell me! One cannot, alas, see one’s own aura.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “There were red accents. Like the laces on the shoes. Why red?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “Red topstitching acts as a common thread, both figuratively and literally. In French, we call it un fil rouge. This can be found on some of the clothing and also on the accessories. It serves to highlight the work of the ateliers – again, this idea of ‘technical beauty’.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “Would you call this collection a study of the jacket?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “The ateliers at Dior Homme have an incredible know-how when it comes to tailoring. In a way, tailoring is Dior Homme’s DNA, so everything always starts from there – though for the most recent seasons, I have been pushing the sportswear forward.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “What makes a good jacket? Is the construction or the design more important to you?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “I have always felt there was something a little strange about tailored jackets. They don’t really suit the active lives we lead – they can be hard to move in. Together with the Dior Homme ateliers, I work, season after season, on different forms of ‘deconstruction’ of those jackets, on different ways of making them more comfortable, but without causing them to lose their allure. For my last collections, I used a lightweight, almost-fluid construction within the jackets, which allows the shoulders to look perfect and gives the jackets the allure they need. It’s a question of finding a balance between construction and design.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “Can you pinpoint the moment when you decided that you wanted to dress men for a living? When you wanted to be a designer?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “It was really when I realised someone was designing the clothes I was wearing. I wanted to be that person.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “But why menswear? Why not womenswear?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “You could say I ended up in menswear by accident. I graduated from the Antwerp Academy with a womenswear collection, but then got an internship at YSL Rive Gauche Homme. Even though I had been looking for a womenswear brand, I couldn’t refuse an internship at YSL. This is how I discovered menswear could be as interesting as women’s. It meant that, when I finally launched my own label, after six years of being an assistant both at YSL and Dior Homme, I had a precise idea of what I wanted to do on my own in menswear.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “How do you separate what you do for Dior and your own line? When you start working on both collections, do you start with the same idea and develop it into two completely different collections or do you approach each from a completely different point of view?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “I’ve been doing both labels simultaneously for more than five years now. I’ve developed a sort of intuition that tells me which idea fits which brand best. Sometimes, the starting point for both collections is similar, but the way I work them at the two brands makes for very different results. Dior Homme is very much about technique and savoir-faire. It’s about making the most out of the endless possibilities at hand. It’s about using tradition to create something new. It is about creative luxury. It is me within a house with a heritage. At KRISVANASSCHE, it’s about an attitude, an ‘ideal man’ I have in my head. It’s probably a little more rugged – a very personal vision of the contemporary male. Each season is a challenge to push both labels forward; two vocabularies within one – my – vision of fashion.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “The theme of our issue is youth. Tell me about the teenage Kris. What were you like growing up? Were you a rebel?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “Well, I grew up an only child in a conservative environment with little space for creativity and personality. I didn’t fit in and quickly got attracted to cities like Antwerp or Brussels, where so much more seemed to happen. At the age of 18, I moved to a tiny flat in the centre of Antwerp and entered the Antwerp Fashion Academy. It was the first time I really felt like I belonged.”
NATALIE DEMBINSKA: “What’s the most rebellious thing you’ve ever done?”
KRIS VAN ASSCHE: “I’m sure that’s still to come. Rebellion is growing in me.”
by Natalie Dembinska
