Top image: Kris Van Assche working on a look at the Dior Homme FW16 fittings Photo credit: Adrien Dirand

This season Kris Van Assche drew the Dior Homme man out of his shell and presented a carpe diem liberator, a subcultural hybrid with a zealous attitude.

In a crimson lit show space models skirted around fluorescent skate ramps – a nod to the sports sensibilities that ran through yesterday’s collection. – marching to the ominous tune of EBM purveyors Nitzer Ebb and D.A.F. A call to action. Here the mantra instructed us to live for the moment and embrace the here and now.

We grabbed man of the moment Kris Van Assche for an exclusive chat about the inspirations and reference points behind his latest Dior Homme collection.

Dior Homme FW16
“New ideas always start with the end of the last season, so this collection moves from the sunlight, the flowers and the bourgeoisie of Summer to the total opposite: dark, night and Berlin. At the same time, I wanted very much to convey a condition of now – people no longer just fit into one box but many. It’s about how to approach that hybridisation.

I think people are yearning for comfort from nostalgia at the moment – I wanted to avoid that. I want to take elements of the past, things that people have grown up, but put them in the present, in the situation of now, to reflect people as they are now. It reflects somebody from a new generation, free from nostalgia. Where everything is now.

I am amazed about the fluidity of the collection coming together. We have had fun with it – and I am very excited about it.”