Dior Homme creative director Kris Van Assche sits down with British magazine i-D to dish on his tenure at the Parisian label and spring’s collection. Confiding where he’s at in his life, Van Assche confesses, “I am conscious of time passing and the necessity to enjoy life. I’m much more comfortable at 39 than I was at 16, believe me. People say, ‘I wanna be a teenager again.’ That’s really not my ideal at all.”
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Comparing the Dior Homme man under his creative reigns to Hedi Slimane’s more trendy figure of years past, Van Assche shares, “I feel he changed hugely. With Hedi now having his own show at Saint Laurent, put those two shows next to each other and that’s how much it has changed.” The designer explains, “It’s become more what I consider to be the right answer to what the men’s division in a French couture house is supposed to look like. Because that’s really the question I asked myself almost nine years ago. For me it was not supposed to stay so niche. It had to grow and evolve towards something else, and it sure as hell grew.” Read more on i-D.VICE.com.
Accompanying the story, photographer Willy Vanderperre and stylist Alastair McKimm join creative forces. Shooting a story entitled Let the Sea Set You Free, Vandeperre captures striking images of models Benno Bulang at Tomorrow is Another Day, Jolan de Bouw at Hakim Model Management, Ruben Pol at 16Men, Tim Schumacher at Premium Models and Yasko. The youthful lot models garments from Dior Homme’s spring-summer 2016 collection.