"COAL" FW10 DH Fashion Show: MATURITY and CONFIDENCE

If one can judge about the way a fashion show and a collection have been received by the lenght of the applauses and the enthusiasm of the audience after the show ended,
NO DOUBT, Kriss van Assche, yesterday, met with a HUGE SUCCESS!
3PM, Saturday, January 23, Paris, we still wait for the last VIP to enter under the flashes of the journalists, the show is late...then lights let down and immediatly, at the sound of "Temple of Love" by Sister of Mercy -The Gothic Collection, the first model enters into the all black Arena.

Two half circles filled with coal design the ground, concentric white light circles hang from the high celling. Models begin to rush in a perfect choregraphy, set as a music score, as sliding on half circles runways, imperturbable, just like out of time warriors or angels.

Out of time, because what we see, seems to be an evidence.
It's so natural,fluid, free...out of time....
It seems that it has always been here and will be here for ever, just like a perfect symbiosis between forms and bodies, fabrics and noble materials. Cloths wrap the bodies, never restrain but follow the movement, all seem to be floating into the air.
It's just like it has to be!
It's just so timeless!
A perfect alchimy between gothic and futuristic.
There are tons of innovations, inventions but nothing hurts.

At the beginning of the show, everything is black. Lines are still a bit sharp.

Trousers are more or less slim but always a few inches upper the ankle, revealing black leather derbies or richelieus, showing black socks above.
A leather and metal double belt hangs down on the side, along the tigh.
 
Thin white graphic lines emphise some of the edges like the tie, or the armhole, the shoulder.

Then oversize very long black coats come but seem still to be in competition with shorter black trenches or leather jackets and coats.
The fabrics high level of quality and innovation immediatly catch the attention of the audience.

When a strange black leather camisole appears, remains of ancient codes slowly vanish to enter into mutation of the classic codes.

A blazer dresses itself in another half jacket above.
 

Another shows estonishing mutation of its side fronts falling down to the knees.

Another one loses one of its lapels to be freely belted on side, the other lapel flying above.

 
Then enters the beige/grey colour under the spotlights. Lines are more and more fluid.

Deep wool fabrics are gorgeous. Tailoring is just fantastic. The total lack of lining being the absolute proof of it.




















 
Very long coats float over jackets which one of the lapels has become a scarf around the neck. Fabrics float through the runway.
























Jackets and coats collars overlap each other.

Grey comes darker slowly but inexorably turning back to coal.

Vertical lines into the fabrics rythm and emphase the evenescent silhouettes draped in.







The last shadow disappear at the time where all the models come back for a last lap and KVA to come for a quick run to the center of the arena, a large smile on his lips, apparently happy and relaxed, just like a certitude deep inside of him, a confidence in what he has shown here.
The audience gives the final reason to this general feeling in each of us into a long bunch of applauses.

Confidence is the right word. Kriss van Assche 's work for DIOR HOMME as reached MATURITY.
Kriss has now definitively led the DIOR HOMME fashion line to meet with his own world. Reached from any stess, he has naturally gone on with what he began for the previous SS2010 collection.
Back to true tailoring, gorgeous material and fabrics, organic pattern line, he can now imposes his personnal guideline with no complex. 
This what the audience and the fashion critics all together agreed on this last Saturday.

Especially when looking to the other collections that were shown in Paris at the same time, it appears as a certitude that the DIOR HOMME fashion show was, far ahead, the very best rdéfilé of this weekend.


Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy seems to be lost and searching for salvation into the Christ he uses as a leitmotif in its FW collection, just repeating with tiredness what he brillantly did for his FW 2009 collection...
Rick Owens who always brought innovation into fashion seems to have become very wise this season and doesn't estonish anymore - it's also true that each designer (included Kriss) has drawn into Rick's insparation which makes the Rick Owens new collection, now, almost usual...
Nicolas Guesquières for Balenciaga, certainly for economical reason, is able to show only a shortcut of his new winter collection, certainly very good but so tiny...
John Galliano made once more his extravagant and colourfull show that everybody expected from him, but who can reasonnably wear that kind of clothes? He is certainly a great artist but hard to follow...

Only Alexander Mc Queen and Stefano Pilati for Yves Saint-Laurent (very nice FW show for both of them) seemed to have found their audience into a fashion week that everyone agrees to say dull, very conformist and with no real true good surprises.

Kriss van Assche who generally shows and experiments one season earlier for his own label the direction he will use for DIOR HOMME the following season (easy to check), did not need this time to use this rule.
As I said previously, away from any stress, sure about his work for DIOR HOMME, he decided to show a very relaxed and simple, sober and all in smoothness collection. He has no more to over challenge as all the bad words and free criticisms he constantly received since he took the head of DIOR HOMME fashion design are now less and less audible.

I have been looking this morning on numerous fashion forums and newspapers in France and rest of world, and everybody seems to agree on the fact the FW2010 DIOR HOMME Fashion show is a true huge success.

Of course, this review is my opinion, and only my opinion, and I am quite sure some of you won't agree. But my purpose, here, was mainly to bring to the forum a report of what I had the chance to be part of and to share it with you.  Hope it helped... 

Jan 24, '10 11:03 AM