Alexis Mabille

Alexis Mabille was born in Lyon and he wanted to be a costume designer by the time he was 9. He interned at the opera and had jobs through school vacations and by age 13 he was making wedding gowns. He graduated from Chambre Syndicate de Haute Couture in 1997 and became an apprentice at Unago and Nina Ricci. Mabille then worked at Christian Dior for another ten years before he decided to open his own house in 2005.

He is well known for his reinvention of the bowtie by creating it with different shapes and unusual materials and thus it became his emblem. His style is certainly dainty and light, playing with the cute and sensual in his collections.

He currently owns an apparel line called Impasse Treize and a neckwear line called Treizor. He is definitely gaining popularity in the fashion business for his dynamic and fresh take on unisex fashion.

Works Cited

"Alexis Mabille." Alexis Mabille. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2013.

Davies, Lizzy. "Fine and Dandy." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 27 Jan. 2009. Web. 28 Jan. 2013.

Gavenas, Marilise. “Lucky 13.” DNR 37.29 (2007): 42-. ProQuest Central. Web. 28 Jan. 2013

Ingesson, Celia. "Alexis Mabille €“ Haute Couture S/S 2013." Stylesight. Stylesight Inc, 25 Jan. 2013. Web. 28 Jan. 2013.

Kris van Assche

I stumbled onto this article on Stylesight.com about Dior Homme's F/W 2013 collection by Kris van Assche who is the Artistic Director for Dior Homme since April 2007.

 

I was immediately intrigued by this designer on the clean lines and subtle details that he showed in this futuristic collection. It is interesting to see how he incorporated this kind of minimalistic look to fit the Dior Homme's image and it sparked my curiosity behind this designer.

Kris van Assche was born in1976 in Belgium where he also graduated from the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After that, he was lucky to have scored a four-month internship in 1998 with Hedi Slimane who was the Artistic Director for Yves Saint Laurent. He stayed as Slimane's assistant and apprentice there and then Dior for over six years before he launched his own collection, KRISVANASSCHE, in January of 2005. He was eventually offered the Artistic Director position of Dior Homme, succeeding Slimane since April 2007.

He did not have an easy path to success as his style was criticized for being similar to Slimane's ever since he launched his own collection. Van Assche had a lot to prove and to impress his investors that he would not be under Slimane's shadow since Slimane was a widely acknowledged designer for reinventing Yves Saint Laurent menswear. He did do some creative thinking to get the house on a refreshing new path by doing his own interpretation of "power dressing" and reworked the collection to have "feminine backgrounds".

He found his style and stuck to it finding inspiration from Dior's memoirs and his philosophy of design. He even had the Dior Homme headquarters painted from dark to light in order to refresh the outlook and start anew. I find it endearing that he has to work under that pressure and finally produced an amazing outcome for Dior Homme and I am looking forward to his future collections.

-Hong

Works Cited

Clark, Adrian. "Foot in the Dior ; Kris Van Assche had Big Shoes to Fill when He Got One of the Top Jobs in Menswear. He Tells Adrian Clark how He's Making His Own Mark on a Legendary Label." The Independent: 1. Aug 13 2007. ProQuest Central. Web. 21 Jan. 2013 .  

Bernard, Gaetan. "KRISVANASSCHE." Krisvanassche. Krisvanassche, n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2013. 

Kris Van Assche. N.d. Photograph. GQ. Gentlemen's Quarterly, 25 Jan. 2012. Web. 21 Jan. 2013.

        <http://www.gq.com/images/style/2012/01/10-essentials-kris-van-assche/kris-van-asscheportrait.jpg>.

Luecke, Andrew. "Dior Homme." Blog-Stylesight. StyleSight Inc, 19 Jan. 2013. Web. 21 Jan. 2013.    <http://blog.stylesight.com/runway/dior-homme-6>.