Celebrating Two Decades of Kris Van Assche’s Sleek Designs

After a prolific career spanning 55 collections across Dior Homme, Berluti, and his own namesake label, creative director Kris Van Assche decided to take a sabbatical – until he was approached by Belgian publishing house Lannoo to produce a book. “We’d been in touch as they’d wanted to use pictures of my interior for a project, and then they suggested doing a book on my 18-year career,” the designer recalls, “and it finally felt like the right time. I needed to somehow be free to be able to make one book which combined all three brands.” The resulting tome, Kris Van Assche: 55 Collections, is not just a magnificent retrospective of the designer’s contribution to fashion, but an open “creative psychoanalysis” as he ventures down memory lane.

Van Assche worked on the book for at least four days a week, every week, for the past year – collecting imagery, memories, and stories from those around him. What was intended to be a simple revisiting of his “favourite collections,” quickly became a therapeutic exercise: “sometimes one bad review can mess with your mind and give you bad vibes about the season,” he explains, “but then, with a healthy distance and without the drama of the moment, you can see that it was actually a nice collection.”  The clarity of hindsight allowed him to see how one season led to the next, and the project organically grew into a journey through all 55 collections.

For a self-described “reserved person,” who previously preferred to limit interviews only to matters of fashion, the book is openly vulnerable and tender: imagery is accompanied by his first-person explanations of each collection and then intertwined with personal anecdotes from both him and others. “There are quotes from people who lived that same moment, but it’s their point of view,” he explains of this intentional collusion of memory. “They could be from Sidney Toledano, the president of Dior. Or they could be from my dad. And these are the most fun contributions because there is obviously stuff that I’ve forgotten or remembered differently.” Similarly, the project reconnected him with photographers who have captured his designs across the years – stunning imagery from the likes of David Sims, Nan Goldin, and Patrick Demarchelier illuminate the intimacy of his words.

Although Van Assche laughs that this experience of vulnerability does not mean that we will now see him “making vlogs cooking in a swimsuit in the kitchen,” it has given him clarity on what his next steps are. “It was really healing to arrange everything, to give it space, and think back on why I did fashion in the first place,” he says, “to consider ‘what was it that I initially loved, how do I see it now, and what do I want to do next?’” And, more than anything, this “creative psychoanalysis” has put the designer at “peace with the past, at ease with the big picture” – and reminded him that he still loves fashion. 

Kris Van Assche: 55 Collections is published by Lannoo, and is out now.