To many designers of menswear, the models who walk the runway to present their collections are little more than handsome clothes hangers. These designers’ pursuits lie more in the area of dressing their ‘ideal man’, imbuing their garments with empowering qualities for some specific hero character [even themself] – a character who may be worlds away from the lithe 20-somethings who grace the catwalk.

Kris Van Assche however, views his models as muses – their individual perfections and imperfections guide his creative mind and take him across cultures and geographies to access his creative inspirations. In the next weeks we will experience Kris’s connection with his models both at Dior and his own label, with his connections becoming clearer as the same bright faces and personalities appear in both his shows each season – a cohort of vibrant young men whom Kris has chosen to embody his aesthetic on the runway and in his campaigns.

Here is a first preview of Kris’s castings, with the above polaroid images featured in A#7. Photographed by Jean-Pierre Baux of Dior Homme, the model Johan Johansson resounds a relaxed confidence – as he poses with a cigarette hanging limply from his lips. With heavy-set brows and a large nose, tanned skin and a strong jaw, Johan typifies only one facet of Kris Van Assche’s ‘looks’ – a rugged masculine beauty.

The image below, taken backstage at the Spring Summer 2009 show of Dior Homme, shows that his models are anything but ‘cookie-cutter’ beauties – rather they are guys from different walks of life, each with their own tale to tell.