Kenzo

Kenzo Takada was born in 1939 in Himeji, Japan. He began reading his sisters' fashion magazines at such an early age that his love of fashion seems to have been instinctual. After a short stint at the University of Kobe, he enrolled in Tokyo's Bunka Fashion College in 1958, which had only recently opened its doors to male students. After earning his diploma, Kenzo moved to Paris in 1964. Aside from gaining a foothold in the fashion environment, he began to amass an eclectic collection of textiles acquired from flea markets. As a result, Kenzo’s first bold designs were a mélange of fabric pieces sewn together to make one garment. Although Madame Hanae Mori was the first Asian to present her work in Paris in 1961, the designs shown in that city by Kenzo beginning in 1970 were the true point of departure. Kenzo’s new silhouette was markedly different from the more fitted and figure-revealing looks popular at the time. Credited as the first designer to appropriate the less obvious elements of Japanese dress, such as obfuscation of the body, Kenzo created garments made from yards of billowing cotton fabric that were smocked across the shoulders and breastbone and then fell in full folds around the wearer. His work presaged the 1970s and 1980s trends for oversized sweaters and boxy silhouettes worn by millions, and his smocks even served as sources of inspiration for couturiers such as Yves Saint Laurent. Throughout the 1970s, his collections gained greater media attention as he expanded his company, including his first retail establishment, which he called “Jungle Jap.” Kenzo’s variations on clothes worn by Japanese agricultural workers, such as the happi, incorporated bright floral fabrics rather than the frayed, deconstructed, and dark aesthetic typically associated with Japanese design. Although Kenzo remained less well known than his compatriots, such as Issey Miyake, his breezy and whimsical folkloric-inspired styles set fashion on a new course. LVMH, the French-based fashion conglomerate, purchased the Kenzo name in 1993, and Kenzo retired from his label in 1999. By 2003, the Sardinian-born designer Antonio Marras had been hired to design the women’s line, and he became the company’s sole creative director five years later. In 2011, design duo Carol Lim and Humberto Leon, founders of the New York-based boutique and clothing label Opening Ceremony, took over at Kenzo. They were succeeded by Felipe Oliveira Baptista in 2019. Baptista remained in the position of creative director at the time of Kenzo Takada’s death in 2020, at the age of 81.