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Rose Marie Cromwell for WSJ. Magazine
ON A CLEAR, warm night in December, roughly 50 paper lanterns by the late artist Isamu Noguchi adorned a private room at The Webster boutique in Miami. An animated crowd, including musicians A$AP Rocky and Ricky Martin, gathered for dinner to celebrate Dior Homme’s latest collection for its Black Carpet eveningwear line. The night capped off a milestone year for Kris Van Assche, the Belgian-born designer who has spent a decade at the helm of the French menswear label. As other fashion houses engage in a dizzying game of designer musical chairs—even the womenswear arm of Dior has seen its share of leadership turnover the past few years—Van Assche, 40, has garnered acclaim for his rebellious take on sportswear and suiting. “I don’t take it for granted,” Van Assche says. “You never know what’s going to happen. Fashion is a competitive world. It’s a challenge to make every show better and question what can be done differently. The moment you think it’s a done deal, you’re a done deal.”
Van Assche was born and raised in Londerzeel, Belgium. An only child, he spent his time sketching, reading magazines and watching music videos. “I was always intrigued by how clothes and imagery completed the music,” he says. Paris, the loud, creative fashion hub he dreamed about, felt like “the other side of the world.”
Photo:
Rose Marie Cromwell for WSJ. Magazine
But Antwerp was just a 30-minute drive away. So when he turned 18, Van Assche enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, following in the footsteps of notable alumni like Ann Demeulemeester and Dries Van Noten. And eventually, after graduating in 1998, he found his way to Paris, assisting Hedi Slimane at Yves Saint Laurent, before the pair moved to Dior in 2000. Van Assche left in 2004 to start his own eponymous label, but returned to Dior Homme three years later (he hit pause on his label in 2015). In that time, he has moved the collections toward more playfully subversive designs.
Throughout, Van Assche has enriched the brand by overseeing collaborations with artists Larry Clark, Paolo Roversi and François Bard, whose paintings of orchids and of men in hoodies embellish shirts, jackets and bags this spring. As the brand has grown (Dior Homme opened its seventh store in the U.S. last year), he has produced some unexpected offerings along the way—like the recent launch of a $3,200 limited-edition BMX bike. Van Assche continues to revel in the design process, while remaining forward-looking. “The work method at Homme is intensive,” he says. “We are full speed, and I think ambitions have never been bigger. It’s a good time to be ambitious.”
Van Assche by the Numbers
100 pairs of sneakers: The estimated number Van Assche owns.
4 photographs: Works by Robert Mapplethorpe in Van Assche’s art collection.
8 trips: The number of international forays he took for work last year, including to London, New York and Tokyo.
46 looks: The total number of ensembles in the summer 2017 collection.
2 artistic directors: Aside from Van Assche, only Hedi Slimane has helmed Dior Homme since its founding in 2001.
3 tattoos: He has two tulips and an orchid.
6 Akari lanterns: The Noguchi-designed light sculptures customized by Van Assche with floral imagery for his dinner at The Webster.
200 hours: Amount of time it took to embroider a Black Carpet jacket with a lily of the valley design.
26 bees: The number embroidered on one tailcoat from the Black Carpet collection.
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