Kris Van Assche
REVIEW
COMPLETE COLLECTION
PARIS, January 27, 2007
By
He has painted himself as menswear's hopeless romantic, with the tango, the roses, the swooning swains, and—in his latest show—Elvis crooning "Can't Help Falling in Love." But you'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at Kris Van Assche's sentimental posturing. And maybe the designer has begun to understand the potential for ridicule, because his new presentation was a much more down-to-earth affair. There were some iffy stylist's flourishes—a wayward tiara, a few too many necklaces, shirts untucked just so on one side—but there was also a moment or two where Van Assche made the most of the hybrid of formal dressing and sportswear that continues to be a riptide in men's fashion.The loose bow tie trompe-stitched on a white shirt perhaps wasn't the best idea (paging Anthony Michael Hall), but another white shirt with a piqué-bib front and a black-striped knit collar was a striking distillation of the dress-up/down dialogue. White piping snaked across black trousers to create a bias-cut effect, and the seaming of a pinstripe jacket fit into the season's fascination with a new geometry of the body.
When Van Assche went street, layering a tiny waistcoat over a plaid shirt over a white shirt (with a whacking great pair of sneakers on the model's feet), he simply proved that he's better off in the salon. But then, what else would you expect from a designer who offered utilitarian cargo pants in lustrous cappuccino-colored velvet corduroy?
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