From the series '22 Portraits for Kris Van Assche' by Matt Saunders. Courtesy of the artists and Analix Forever gallery, Geneva. The portrait has always occupied a central place in art, through the whole history of humanity. The French philosopher Levinas has extensively elaborated on the fact that the face is pure signification and refuses itself to possession. According to Levinas, the face both appeals crime and forbids killing ; it simultaneously reveals human beings’ vulnerability and triggers their own responsibility towards their peers.
In contrast to art, fashion often tends to dissimulate the face, to replace its epiphany by stereotypes, by clones of what « beauty » should be and to replace individuals by « mannekins » (ie, smaller versions of man). Impossible to recall one single face after most défilés… unless they are « people » that you will find the day after on the cover of all magazines. This absence of the face is sometimes radicalized to its extreme by designers who hide it completely and sometimes it is just cut off. After all, fashion is about clothes – so who cares about the face ?
Some care. Kris Van Assche for example : his objective is not (only) to make beautiful clothes : it is to render individuals more beautiful. « Individuals » though have faces, individual ones… Among the many innovations Kris Van Assche is bringing into the fashion scene, the Renaissance of the Face is an fundamental one. Simple though genius intuitions : in order to enhance beauty, I need to enhance freedom – in order to reveal beauty, I need to reveal singularity. The singularity is hidden in each individual face.
For Kris Van Assche, Renaissance of the Face also includes collaborations with other artists, such as the Berlin-based American artist Matt Saunders, who recently realized « 22 portraits for Kris Van Assche ». To be seen in the next issue of Londerzeel, the magazine created by Kris Van Assche.
The Renaissance of the Face, and art is back in fashion !
Backstage at Kris Van Assche womens defilé FW09 by Gaëtan Bernard
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