Fashion Insiders on Kim Jones' Dior Homme Move

Industry insiders share their views on the recent appointment HYPEBEAST Features Friday March 23, 2018 [hypebeast] Kim Jones to Dior Homme: What Does it Mean for the Brand? After 11 years in the role, Belgian designer Kris Van Assche has stepped down as artistic director of Dior Homme. In his place, Kim Jones is due to take up the mantle, putting to bed months of speculation following his exit from Louis Vuitton earlier this year. The news came as somewhat of a shock and marks the end of a design legacy that stretches from Dior Homme’s founding under the direction of Hedi Slimane to the present day. Van Assche’s career is intimately linked to Slimane’s — the Belgian designer worked as Slimane’s assistant at Yves Saint Laurent before following him to Dior Homme. After a brief spell focusing on his namesake label, Van Assche was chosen as Slimane’s successor for the artistic director job at Dior Homme in 2007. The connection between the two designers also extends to their aesthetic as Slimane’s ultra skinny, rock’n’roll-influenced creations continued with Assche. “He basically kept the youthful tailoring vibe of Hedi Slimane, without adding that much,” critic Angelo Flaccavento tells HYPEBEAST when asked for his view on Van Assche’s tenure. That’s not to say, though, that Van Assche didn’t add his own take on the brand. For the line, he drew influences from new wave, post-punk and rave subculture as well as pioneering the crossover between legacy luxury and street style, gaining higher profile fans like A$AP Rocky along the way. These subcultures were some of the key touchstones in Van Assche’s work, points Lara Djandji, Designer Buyer at Harvey Nichols, describing music as “the influence which you can always feel through his collections.” [hypebeast] Djandji sees this influence as the key divergence between Van Assche and his predecessor. “There was an obvious influence from Slimane who was his mentor for many years before,” she explains. “But Kris was very successful in making sure that his own collections for Dior always had his own personal touch thanks to his obsession with music.” Aside from separating his work from that of Slimane’s, Djandji believes Van Assche’s music influence added a new dimension to Dior Homme. “After Slimane, he really exposed the brand to a wider market,” says Djandji. “The audience ranged in age, from a young cool kid who could get into Dior Homme thanks to the music influence,” she explained further. [READ FULL ARTICLE ON HYPEBEAST →]( More HYPEBEAST Features [[hypebeast] Is H&M’s Graffiti Scandal Apology Too Little Too Late?]( [[hypebeast] Street Style Gets Bold at Seoul Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2018]( [[hypebeast] Best New Tracks: Flying Lotus, Zayn, NAV, Yung Bans and More]( Follow Us Download Our App Free on iOS and Android 2018 Hypebeast Limited. All Rights Reserved. [Unsubscribe](=--8f5d621572d4307b3d5fe8d0706c16099eb00349)