Kenzo Takada

Kenzo Takada was born in Kyoto, in the Hyogo region of Southern Japan in 1940. Dissatisfied with the literature studies prescribed by his traditional innkeeper parents, Kenzo went to the capital Tokyo, where he worked as a house painter and took evening classes in studio art. In 1958, Kenzo joined the predominantly female student body of the Bunka Gakuen School of Fashion. In 1960, he won a Japanese fashion award, the prestigious Soen prize. Kenzo then began to work for the Sanai department store as a designer of girl's clothing, making up to 40 different styles each month.

In 1964, Kenzo moved to Paris. Eventually, he started sketching new ideas for clothes to make. The revolutionary new outfits drawn by Courreges were the inspiration for a series of 30 designs he made, 5 of which were accepted by designer Louis Feraud. Over the next few years, he worked for various departmental stores, the Pisanti textile group and Relations Textiles.

Six years following that, Kenzo took over a former antique clothing store in disrepair and painted it by himself. Then cutting and sewing a collection of his own designs, Kenzo took them round to the fashion magazines. By the month of November, he had moved to 28 passage Choiseul and almost immediately his clothes started attracting great notice. A boutique in the Galeria Vivienne gave him the chance to introduce his own style to Parisiennes.

That same year, Kenzo opened his very own boutique called "Jungle Jap" selling loose casual clothes, smock tent dresses, and huge striped dungarees with elephant legs. He enlarged armholes and changed the shoulder shape and introduced 100% cotton fabrics. In 1971, Jungle Jap designs were featured in American Vogue as the next development in the Paris boutique scene. In 1972 Kenzo's show at the Gare d'Orsay was also very successful.

In 1975, his first collections were shown in Tokyo, Japan. Two years afterwards, Kenzo presented his collections in New York. In 1978 he became known as the "Great White designer" although his designs were very colourful and his styles amazingly diverse. A year later, Kenzo's collection was shown in Zurich, Switzerland for the first time.

In 1990 Kenzo's empire expanded to include menswear, jeans, children's wear along with other products.

In October 1999, Kenzo presented his final show, handing over the design to Giles Rosier. In October 2001, Gilles Rosier presented his Spring 2002 collection for Kenzo, favouring the exotic tropics as his main area of inspiration. Colourful embroidery was prevalent. The palm print was used throughout the collection on white and grey blouses. Gilles said "I went through all the old Kenzo collections and tried to design something new whilst adding a modern twist to the Asian influences.". Kenzo later sold his house to the Luxury group LVMH run by Bernard Arnault.

However Kenzo Takada himself has no plans to ever disappear. At a lunch with the press in May 2002, he outlined his future plans. Having started up a label called "Yume" (Japanese for Dream) which will include a series of men and women's apparel and accessories, as well as bed linen with Japanese motifs for La Redoute, Europe's biggest mail order group, owned by Francois Pinault.
 

The Style of Kenzo

Kenzo's motifs are mostly floral with colours and leaves. His perfume bottle is actually a shaped as a leaf. Kenzo also likes animal prints, tartans and daring colour combinations.

Kenzo's main predilection is for simplified child-like shapes such as pullover vests, knee length shorts, mini coats, sweater dresses, all of them made fresh by such foreign nuances as Kimono sleeves (unusual in knitted clothing) and oversized berets.

Kenzo follows the principle of flat patterns such as what was used for kimonos. He widens armholes and modifies shoulders. Kenzo is influenced by folk costumes and interprets varied dress such as Spanish boleros, Austrian loden jackets, Indian trousers, Chinese tunics, Bedouin blankets and Breton aprons.



 

Find fashion by Kenzo @ the following eshop: