Background Research KENZO

Kenzo Tadaka, born in 1939, started his fashion career when he was a young boy, and went on to create the legacy which is now KENZO. In 1964, Kenzo Takada, a young fashion designer from Himeji, Japan, decided to embark upon a grand adventure. He had never left Japan, but he bought a one-way, second-class passage to Europe aboard a boat. The six-week sojourn—with ports of call in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Djibouti, Egypt, and finally France—was to be a profound coming-of-age experience. The dazzling kaleidoscope of sights and sensations he encountered would inspire his simple, almost childlike mantra: “The world is beautiful.”

That credo lay close to Takada’s heart when, six years later, he opened a boutique in Paris selling his own designs. Playfully dubbed Jungle Jap—with walls painted in a lush tropical tableau à la Henri Rousseau—the shop was located on Galerie Vivienne, far from the rarefied bastions of the haute couture, and its vibrant clothes captured the joyful spirit of a multicultural world.

Takada made garments unlike anything Paris was accustomed to. His first collection, presented in the spring of 1970, consisted of kimono-inspired pieces that rejected the streamlined space-age shifts and slender suits that had dominated the ’60s. He dispensed with the Western practice of molding a garment to the figure through the use of darts, seams, and fastenings—and instead introduced the Eastern custom of wrapping loose layers. The brand is well known for its play with print, and pattern, keeping the image of Kenzo young and free. This is something Tadaka wants to keep present through all garment designs for the brand.

Within just a few seasons, press and buyers and fans were packing his over-the-top shows. Takada was celebrating a multi-hued world that was harmonious and eclectic. His initial use of the slur Jap, which had raised hackles in America, was an attempt to reassociate the word with something beautiful, he said. He eventually thought better of his decision, renaming the label and store Kenzo.

Kenzo retired in 1999, but today his house is seeing a robust revival under the guidance of the young American cult designers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim of Opening Ceremony. “My work was always about freedom and harmony,” the founder once said. “I’d like to be remembered as a designer who crossed boundaries.”