Kris Van Assche is out to make flower arranging extra trendy, extra poetic — and a bit disruptive.
His new assortment for Belgian homewares specialist Serax contains glass poppies and orchids that can by no means wilt; lengthy silver-plated glass tubes to water and exalt a single stem, and vases in such uncommon supplies as concrete, marble and silver-plated porcelain.
Simply launched on serax.com, The Josephine Assortment proves that the surprising components that usually sparked Van Assche’s menswear designs for Berluti and Dior — tribal tattoo motifs one season, punk badges the subsequent — may also apply to vessels.
To make certain, the Belgian designer introduced virtually a lifetime of flower-arranging appreciation to the venture, named after his late grandmother and typically instantly impressed by her vases and sweet dishes.
“She had not a lot cash, however she positively had a excessive style degree and he or she was positively a fan of maintaining appearances,” Van Assche stated. “She would by no means go away the home with out a hat, and he or she would all the time set a pleasant desk, even for a fast lunch. For her, each had been a type of politeness.”
Kris Van Assche
Courtesy of Serax
In an interview, the designer cited a robust appreciation for “old-world magnificence” — and for the provocative flower images of American artist Robert Mapplethorpe, who usually depicted stems jutting horizontally from a vessel and sagging sensually.
However the designer additionally flexed his style coaching at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Artwork, which demanded style college students dissect historic clothes after which discover methods to interpret them in unique and modern methods.
Therefore Van Assche insisted on an oblong base for all his vessels, which not solely provides stability however telegraphs a extra trendy and minimalist sensibility. He talked about that his menswear designs usually begin with the shoulder line and the sneakers, which “have a giant affect on the attract of the silhouette.”
The lengthy glass tubes, which protrude diagonally from an empty vase, can harbor the last-surviving stem from a bouquet — or be employed in busier preparations.
In the meantime, glass flowers additionally add a disquieting ingredient — a synthetic invader amongst dwell specimens.
A square-bottom vase with a glass orchid.
Courtesy of Serax
The gathering ranges from humble beer-bottle shapes — the makeshift vase of scholars, and Van Assche — to grander botanical and rotund vessels.
Costs begin at 49 euros for a small bud vase and run as much as 560 euros for a tall black marble cylinder, although most vases fall within the neighborhood of 200 euros. Glass poppies and orchids go from 42 euros to 69 euros, whereas sweet dishes go from 95 euros to 260 euros.
Van Assche was acquainted with Serax as a shopper of its tableware by Ann Demeulemeester, considered one of dozens of designers who create china, glasses, lighting, furnishings and residential equipment for the agency, based in Belgium in 1986 by brothers Serge and Axel Van Den Bossche.
Completely happy to be taking a break from style, however lacking interactions with craftspeople, he reached out to Serax instantly, secured a gathering with the chief government officer and shortly launched into a yearlong course of to carry The Josephine Assortment to life.
His preliminary thought was to create synthetic flowers in the identical materials because the vase, whether or not it was glass, concrete or marble. (In the long run, solely glass ones had been technically potential.)
“I all the time really feel like vases are both hidden by a ravishing bouquet of flowers once they’re full or once they’re empty, you place them in a closet. You by no means have a look at the vase as an object by itself,” he stated within the interview. “I fairly preferred the problem of creating a vase that may be one way or the other self-sufficient, that may work with flowers or with out.
“I additionally actually like that concept of a number of features for one vase. So all of those vases are delivered with one tube inside, so you possibly can all the time save the one flower that survived after per week.”
Van Assche stated he owns a few dozen vases, however “for some bizarre purpose, I don’t actually have the kind of vases that I like and that I would like.”
Silver-plated glass tubes add a frisson of sci-fi to a sparse bouquet.
Followers of Van Assche on Instagram are acquainted with his forearm tattoos — orchids on his left arm, tulips on the suitable — and his mirror selfies cradling bunches of flowers within the lobby of his house constructing. He stated he usually buys them on the market as a reward for the chore of meals purchasing, or at his favourite Paris florist, Louis-Géraud Castor, who shares his penchant for “creating stress within the bouquet. There’s all the time a distinction or one thing off steadiness.”
For his Serax picture shoot, Van Assche collaborated with celebrated Antwerp-based floral artist Mark Colle, who famously created partitions of blooms for Raf Simons’ Dior debut in 2012.
The addition of glass tubes actually provides one other dimension to each sparse and dense preparations. “It virtually appears like a ‘RoboCop’ type of bouquet,” Van Assche remarked, referring to Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 American science fiction movie.
In the meantime, his revival of the sweet dish is one other tribute to his grandmother, who stocked hers with chocolate and finally willed them to her grandson.
“It’s most likely probably the most old style merchandise I’ve ever designed, and it was a approach of emphasizing this concept of old-world magnificence,” he stated. “I preferred the way it’s virtually inconceivable to make that object trendy, to present that an replace. And but I really feel like by making them in concrete, or silver-plated china, we truly bought away with it.”
Sweet dishes by Kris Van Assche for Serax.
Courtesy of Serax
