The designer returns with a smaller, direct-to-consumer collection spanning men’s and women’s wear, built around deadstock fabrics and a tightly edited selection of signature and new designs
Kris Van Assche is relaunching his namesake label with a new business model and an expanded focus on both men’s and women’s wear. The Belgian designer, who closed the label in 2015 while serving as creative director of Dior Homme, plans to relaunch the brand around mid-September through his website, krisvanassche.com, with a direct-to-consumer approach centered on limited quantities and a concentrated selection of pieces.
The new collection will combine re-editions of key Kris Van Assche styles with recognizable signature pieces and new designs across both categories. Made using high-quality deadstock fabrics, the collection will comprise roughly 40 styles spanning jackets, shirts, trousers, skirts, dresses, and knitwear. Van Assche is developing the label with a very small team, favoring an intentionally limited scale over the broader wholesale model that defined its first chapter.
“What I’m doing now is very much smaller scale, not imposing myself an agenda, doing things in-house,” he said.
The collection will be positioned within the designer category but at the lower end of that pricing spectrum, with shirts expected to retail for approximately 400 to 500 euros and jackets starting at around 1,000 euros. The relaunched website will also serve as a platform for Van Assche’s wider creative practice, bringing together the new collection with design projects and collaborations developed during his time away from the traditional fashion calendar.
Since leaving Berluti in 2021, where he spent three years as artistic director following an 11-year tenure at Dior Homme, Van Assche has expanded his work into ceramics with Serax, bronze sculpture with Downtown Gallery, and collaborations with Fred Perry and Chinese activewear company Anta. Additional collaborations are also expected to appear on the relaunched site.
The return to womenswear marks a renewed direction for the designer, who graduated from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1998 with a degree in womenswear. He previously incorporated womenswear into his namesake label between 2008 and 2010, but much of his career has been defined by menswear, particularly his tenure at Dior Homme and his subsequent work at Berluti.
The new chapter also revisits the design language that established the Kris Van Assche label after its launch in 2005. The brand became associated with youthful tailoring, athletic and workwear references, high-top sneakers, backpacks, and a willingness to combine traditional suiting with more casual silhouettes. At its height, the label was distributed across approximately 130 doors in 32 countries, with its strongest markets in Asia, particularly Japan and Hong Kong, followed by Europe and North America. It also operated a freestanding Paris store.
The relaunch reflects a different proposition. Rather than rebuilding the former wholesale network, Van Assche is pursuing a more controlled model in which production, distribution, and creative development remain closely connected. The use of deadstock fabrics further reinforces the emphasis on limited production, while allowing the designer to revisit elements of his archive alongside new work.
After several years working across fashion, art, and design, Van Assche has said the distance from the traditional luxury system has given him a fresh perspective. His motivation for returning also echoes the impulse behind the original label: designing from a personal need rather than responding to an established market formula.
“So I really designed out of personal needs, and then of course women’s comes on top of that,” he said. “I find my proposition to be quite right for now.”
The relaunch places Van Assche back in the fashion market on terms that are deliberately smaller and more personal, while extending a design vocabulary established nearly two decades ago into a new phase of the label.