Dior declares it’s time for a few teenage twists
WHILE a pervading sense of uncertainty seeps across Europe after the Brexit vote, Kris van Assche at Dior Homme decided that a day at the fun fair was in order to lighten the mood, with a big-budget set of multicoloured lights on rollercoaster tracks swooping through the Tennis Club de Paris for the house’s spring summer 2017 collection.
But this was no candy floss-tinted frolic on the dodgems: van Assche, the quietly spoken Belgian who has steered Dior’s menswear for nine years, looked to the rebel kids and anarchic subcultures of his youth, who would stomp and scowl as only your average moody teenager can. The idea of tribes struck a chord; Paris is in the grip of football fever, with Euro 2016 matches taking place a stone’s throw from the Dior show.
“It was about flashbacks to when I was at school in Antwerp, of kids trying to be tough and cool, and having fun and mixing up punk, New Wave and romanticism,” van Assche said.
The designer took the tailoring template of the house on a rebellious riff, with metal hardware punctuating the torso of jackets, straps, zips and metal staple-effect on suits, with threads left trailing and cords woven through tops and trousers and left dangling, all in a colour palette of black, red, white and fawn.
A contrasting zig-zag topstitch motif appeared throughout, likewise squares of painterly floral panels seemed hastily patched on to jackets; the teenage goth of the family going rogue with grandma’s Sunday best.
“Everyone knows that Dior can make a good suit,” Van Assche said, with the tailoring arm of the business employing some of the most skilled artisans in the business. “This was about having fun with that and showing what you can do with that: new proportions, jogging trousers with jackets, sneakers, a different silhouette.”
That latter element, voluminous, flowing trousers, has been a gradual volte-face from the house that reinvented the skinny silhouette back in the early 2000s.
Teenage rebellion at the heart of one of Paris’ most prestigious luxury houses might seem like a jarring concept, but as Van Assche said: time we all have more fun.” “It’s