Does Kris Van Assche feel like a fashion Cinderella when he wakes in the morning? It was decreed that the Dior Homme shoe fit him, and he was granted one of the twenty-first century s most powerful, influential legacies. But how can he prove he s more than a pretender to the throne? With great caution, evidently. With this, his first runway show for Dior Homme, Van Assche cleaved close to the original blueprint: a chiaroscuro spectacular featuring live music and a cast of nonprofessional model boys corralled on the designer s travels. Clothing-wise, he opted to explore a couple of themes until there was simply nothing more to be said about them: an outfit composed of a tiny jacket and trousers with a legginglike cling, and a shirt-and-pants combo that featured a bottom half of multi-pleated harem-pant-like extravagance. Hammer pants, they were called in the early 1990s, after everyone s favorite—at the time—rapper. Except that Van Assche s interpretation was more MC Lestat, after everyone s second-favorite vampire.
Van Assche clearly has great faith in this silhouette, because he s used it before. And maybe it is in the DNA of the brand, given David Bowie s brief flirtation with the Big Pant (the Thin White Duke was a seminal inspiration for Hedi Slimane, in both baggy and tight-trousered phases). But even that can t shift the uncomfortable echoes of an early eighties Montreal/New York boutique business called Parachute. Which led on, in this case, to other discombobulating New Wave-isms: the patent leathers, the Eldritch footwear, the curious geometries of hems pointing this way or vents stitched that way. In his show notes, Van Assche evoked "the solemn advance of a Shakespearian hero," which possibly accounted for the Hamlet-on-Mars feel of a slashed doublet… I mean, sweater and hose. Those notes hinted at an acutely self-conscious need to inject portent into the collection, likewise the unremittingly dark palette. That leads one to the obvious solution: Lighten up. There were gems in the murk, however. Van Assche presented some beautiful, poetic shirts; a barathea coat had a sleek (okay, vampiric) glamour. Maybe next time, the sun will be shining.
