Business Of Fashion – 24 juin 2017<\/p>\n
By Tim Blanks<\/p>\n
The power of smell is such that when the first astronauts went into space, they carried vials of different scents as reassuring reminders of Planet Earth. The one that spoke most to happy memories was apparently fresh grass. It certainly worked that way for Kris Van Assche, whose latest show for Dior Homme, Late Night Summer was primed with his recollections of adolescence and staged on a carpet of grass that smelled almost overpoweringly summery.<\/p>\n
The massive curtains of dark tape that hung above it might have been an abstract rendition of a night sky, but I thought of cassette tape too, and teenage boys like Assche slaving over compilations for their Walkmans. Frederic Sanchez struck all the right notes with his soundtrack: Radiohead\u2019s Creep, Depeche\u2019s Enjoy the Silence, REM\u2019s Losing My Religion, Black\u2019s Wonderful Life\u2026 more happy memories.<\/p>\n
There was a sweatshirt in the show embroidered with a painting of flowers by the artist Francois Bard, whose pictures of boys in hoodies Van Assche also duplicated. Bard used some words in his original work, which the designer loosely translated as, \u201cTime is only catching those who ignore it.\u201d Van Assche has never been in any danger of that. He\u2019s always been acutely aware of the passage of time, even more so this season as he celebrates his 10th year at Dior, which is also the house\u2019s 70th anniversary.<\/p>\n
The first half of the show was Van Assche\u2019s reflection on what he considers to be the DNA of Dior menswear, a black suit and white shirt. His dissection was thorough, from an opening look where, for the first time, he offered a male take on the classic \u201cveste de bar\u201d, very tailored with a suppressed waist. Next, the jacket was sleeveless, paired with short shorts, gym shorts really, except they were in black ottoman wool. A little later, there was a tailcoat, Van Assche\u2019s favourite piece in the collection, \u201cbecause it was the most challenging.\u201d It was cut on the bias, a break with tradition that gave the atelier\u2019s tailors nightmares, according to the designer. Its formality was defused by being shown inside out and paired, again, with those shorts. And, again, it was also shown sleeveless. The orphaned sleeves were used in the collection as scarves or casually knotted round waists.<\/p>\n
If that first half of the show was a celebration of his professional life \u2014 the address of the atelier was used as a decorative ribbon detail down a sleeve or writ small as a pinstripe \u2014 the second half was personal. \u201cLate night summer, when we were kids staying out all night for the first time, drinking beers, falling in love\u2026\u201d Van Assche based these looks on school uniforms, with sweatshirts and bombers printed with a college-like logo, or those Bard images of hoodies.<\/p>\n
He mentioned the \u201cattitude of the street\u201d often. Every model wore trainers. Some also wore necklaces that were supposed to look like they\u2019d strung them themselves, from dice and skulls and shells. And there were so many more of the shorts that the teenage gam is incontrovertibly confirmed as the primary male erogenous zone of Spring 2018.<\/p>\n
But (and there is always a \u201cbut\u201d with KVA) something else Van Assche said illuminated why his signature hybrid of sport and tailoring will always err on the side of the latter, so that even the raging hormones of adolescence were subsumed here by adult abstemiousness. I asked about his own summer late nights, his own bittersweet memories of adolescent firsts. \u201cI was way too good,\u201d he answered ruefully. \u201cThat\u2019s why I have to live it now.\u201d So it’s all a fantasy. But, after a certain point, time will catch you, and it\u2019s just too late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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