Kris Van Assche really loves flowers. A peek at the Belgian designer's Instagram will reveal a plethora of mirror selfies holding decadent, grand and colourful bouquets. Tulips, hydrangeas, lilies, anemones, often sourced from Parisian florist Louis-Géraud Castor, are photographed enveloped in their humble paper held by the designer on his doorstep, and then arranged back home into his collection of expressive vases by the likes of Pol Chambost and Brian Rochefort.
Van Assche is best known for his stints as creative director of Dior Homme and then at Berluti, which he left in 2021, and has since been focusing on personal projects such as the 55 Collections book, an overview of his collections at Dior Homme, Berluti and his eponymous label. But his interest in design has been emerging in the past few years, notably through a collection of home office objects with Berluti, and a collaboration between the French brand and Parisian gallery Francois Laffanour on a special edition of Pierre Jeanneret seating clad in Berluti leather.
His passions collide this summer as the designer launches the ‘Josephine’ collection of vases and glass vessels for Belgian brand Serax.
Kris Van Assche and Serax: ‘Josephine’ homeware collection
Comprising glass vases and bonbonnieres, the ‘Josephine’ collection for Serax is inspired by Van Assche's grandmother. 'It is she who instilled a love of fashion in me as well as an understanding of the importance of a beautifully laid out table,' he says. 'She used to say that making the effort to look good and preparing a nice table setting are just another way of being polite.'
Van Assche's passion for flowers can also be credited to her. 'It’s safe to say flowers are an important source of inspiration if you look at the 55 collections I created in the past 20 years, Van Assche adds. 'Flowers are like fashion: they are not an absolute necessity but make life more beautiful.'
The collection features vases in somewhat nostalgic silhouettes, but is in the material curation that Van Assche's modern elegance emerges. The vessels are made, variously, of mouth-blown glass, concrete, marble and silver-plated porcelain, and each comes with a glass tube to create a composition using individual stems. A series of glass flowers completes the collection
This sense of composition references Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs, often featuring single-stem flowers: 'the flower acts like a disruptor, triggering emotion. In a sense, it’s like fashion when you add an unexpected element or tension to an elegant outfit,' Van Assche comments.
Similarly, the designer offers a novel take on the old-fashioned bonbonniere, available in the same palette of materials.
The ‘Josephine’ collection by Kris Van Assche for Serax is available exclusively from serax.com
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