The Belgian menswear auteur reimagines the Fred Perry uniform &mdash; splicing sport and tailoring, punk and polish &mdash; into a sharply subversive wardrobe for a new generation rediscovering rebellion.

There are designers who follow rules, and then there is Kris Van Assche, who has made a career out of quietly dismantling them.
The Belgian-born menswear auteur, known for his tenure as Artistic Director at Dior Homme and later at Berluti, built his reputation on a language of sharp tailoring, controlled silhouettes and a subversive undercurrent. He introduced streetwear into luxury long before it was algorithmically inevitable, creating a new archetype of modern masculinity: lean, graphic, slightly defiant. Florals pinned with precision. Ties worn with irony. Youth culture reframed with discipline.
So when news broke of his collaboration with Fred Perry, it felt more like a homecoming than anything else.

Rooted in sport and steeped in subculture, Fred Perry has long been shorthand for uniform-as-identity &mdash; from Mods to Britpop, from underground gigs to Gen Z&rsquo;s rediscovery of emo playlists and &lsquo;70s punk nostalgia. Kris Van Assche&rsquo;s minimalist rebellion slots neatly into that lineage. Balancing heritage with innovation while decoding classic Fred Perry pieces through his own lens, what emerges is a wardrobe that feels both archival and urgent.
<h3 class="p1">The Fred Perry Shirt, Rewritten</h3>
Rendered in a bold, almost confrontational red, Van Assche&rsquo;s version is punctuated with a trio of botanical badges; photographs of flowers from his personal collection, pinned like emblems of restrained romanticism. Florals have long been one of his signatures; here they feel less decorative and more declarative.

There&rsquo;s also the pique shirt-and-tie hybrid in optic white, complete with black twin tipping and a pre-tied but adjustable black tie. It&rsquo;s schoolboy formality destabilised &mdash; precise, but playful. Wear it properly or don&rsquo;t.

<h3 data-start="2332" data-end="2363">The Tracksuit Becomes a Suit</h3>
The collection&rsquo;s sharpest provocation is the pinstripe tracksuit &mdash; cut on the block of Fred Perry&rsquo;s classic track jacket and trousers, but treated like tailoring. Black with white pinstripes, the jacket and trousers feature subtle detailing: adjustable pull strings at the waist, silver hardware at the pockets. There&rsquo;s even a matching track skirt, collapsing traditional gender codes into one graphic gesture

And for those who prefer their rebellion more literal, there&rsquo;s a casual black blazer with matching tailored shorts: tipped in white, branded with restraint, and cut to blur the line between boardroom and backstage.&nbsp;

<h3 data-start="121" data-end="166">Trompe L&rsquo;Oeil and the Illusion of Layering</h3>
Van Assche&rsquo;s cerebral playfulness appears most clearly in the knitwear.&nbsp;An Argyle short-sleeved V-neck in black, grey, and red uses trompe l&rsquo;oeil technique to create the illusion of a Fred Perry shirt layered underneath. It&rsquo;s a traditional British pattern disrupted.&nbsp;

Meanwhile, a long-sleeve knitted jumper in black and white features a grid-like floral repeat, designed to appear as though it&rsquo;s sitting perfectly over the funnel neck of a zipped track jacket. Once again, the notion of pinning a flower for formal occasions is reimagined, digitised, repeated.&nbsp;Elsewhere, the half-zip &ldquo;sweat-shirt&rdquo; &mdash; a hybrid of classic sporting codes and poplin shirting sleeves &mdash;leans into the collection&rsquo;s tension between polish and insouciance. It&rsquo;s the kind of piece that feels accidental until you realise it&rsquo;s been engineered within an inch of its life.

Styling, we&rsquo;re reminded, is paramount.
A classic black twill cap, stamped with dual branding, anchors the collection. It&rsquo;s powerful enough to downplay a suit, to disrupt a blazer, to signal allegiance to sport even in the most tailored context.

That&rsquo;s the quiet thesis of Fred Perry x Kris Van Assche: uniform as invitation. Wear it straight. Wear it undone. Wear it ironically. There are, as the collaboration suggests, no rules but only codes to reinterpret.
Fred Perry x Kris Van Assche launches February 2026 and will be available locally via Universe Shangri-La EDSA and online at UNIVERS.ph.

Kris Van Assche Brings a Minimalist Rebellious Spirit to Fred Perry

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