For Kris Van Assche there have been many achievements, from launching his namesake label in 2005, to taking on creative directorial positions at Dior Homme and Berluti consecutively. Now with the launch of his new book, 55 Collections, it’s the first time his career defining work has been gathered together.
CZ8: What inspired you to make the book, how was it conceived?
KVA: Belgian publisher Lannoo reached out to me last year in August with the suggestion of doing this book. I am quite a big book collector myself on artists and other designers, so the idea of doing one myself had crossed my mind. But the last 18 years had been incredibly intense, spanning from my own label I launched in 2004 until I left Berluti in 2021. There hadn’t been much time for self-inspection and I hadn’t even really organised any archives. I was always just concentrating on the next season. With this new found free time on my hands, the timing was perfect, and my brain had already started analysing. I guess it’s a normal process when the roller coaster you’re on for so long suddenly stops. I immediately thought of doing the book with art directors M/M (Paris) as we had done quite a lot of work together already for both Dior and Berluti. It made sense to do it with them. And they introduced me to Grace Johnston, who helped me edit the book for most of the past year.
CZ8: Gathering together such a compendium of your work must instil an incredible sense of achievement, how did it feel to look back like this?
KVA: I’ve been through all imaginable emotions. I’ve literally opened every box, hard drive, lookbook and catalogue I could find, and reached out to dozens of former collaborators, artists and photographers. Going back as far as my first show in 2005 brought back so many memories. I am of course proud to see all the works with these incredible people assembled in this book. The campaigns I did for my brand with Jeff Burton or Alessio Bolzoni – both very different – felt very free and they were honest creative expressions of where my mind was at at the time. The campaigns with Willy Vanderperre at Dior, and the amazing group of people we were able to bring together, going from A$AP Rocky, Larry Clark, Boy George, Rami Malek, Oliver Sim to my Belgian favourite contemporary artist Rinus Van de Velde.
Many artists and collaborators shared memories for the book and it’s a part I particularly enjoy. It allows for different angles on a show or a project, as the way they lived through the moment was often different from mine. There are stories I had forgotten and I was happy to include them.
Working on the book also allowed me to see connections I hadn’t thought of before, like how the Berluti man looks quite a bit like my man at Kris Van Assche.
CZ8: 55 collections is an incredible number, were there collections that stood out as defining moments, and if so which were they?
KVA: Of course, there are quite a few. To be honest, I didn’t initially want to include all shows, as there are obviously certain seasons I’m a little less fond of than others. But I quickly understood all collections are somehow linked and one story leads to the other, so I had to be complete. Big moments were of course the first shows of all three brands, as they were the start of a new adventure. And both last shows at Kris Van Assche and Dior were moments also. At Dior, I somehow came full circle reworking the female couture bar jacket for men; it was the ultimate homage to Monsieur Dior, and the silhouette which was the most opposite to the one I inherited 11 years earlier.
There is Kris Van Assche FW12 and FW13, the first being full-on workwear, the second full-on sportswear. There is my SS10 womenswear collection also, which was the last one for women, but also the one I prefer.
At Dior, there have been so many shows, but asides the two last ones, SS10, SS11, FW14 and FW15 were definitely pivotal collections.
In a way, I do feel creatively speaking the most satisfied about the collections I made at Berluti, as the silhouette felt personal and the research and quality of the pieces was pushed to extremes.
CZ8: And conversely, were there any collections you had forgotten?
KVA: Forgotten, no. It’s funny how the brain works and how sometimes a minor detail can put a negative feeling in your unconsciousness on a show forever. A bad review, or a tie not exactly in place, … it’s sometimes enough to put a negative mark. Thank God with the distance of time, I was able to rediscover some of these collections.
CZ8: The book is going to inspire a lot of young designers. What keeps you inspired and how has that evolved over your career?
KVA: The book made me realise I still love fashion a lot, and why I wanted to be a fashion designer in the first place. I have always been fascinated about a sense of old-world beauty, and on how to clash that with our times. It’s an idea that still gets me going in a second.
