Japanese designer Kenzo Takada has died at age 81 after suffering covid-19-like headaches. The designer died Sunday night at an American hospital near Paris, France.
Tributes were poured out for the designer, who debuted in 1970 and over the years has turned Kenzo into a world-renowned logo and fashion house.
Bernard Arnault, president of LVMH, said he was “very sad to hear his death,” expressing sympathy for Takada’s circle of family and friends, adding, “Kenzo Takada, since the 1970s, infused fashion with a poetic lightness tone and soft freedom, which has encouraged many creators after him. In this new and spontaneous spirit, it has also permanently renewed the world of perfume.
LVMH acquired Kenzo in an $80 million transaction in August 1993, the year of its acquisition. Kenzo’s sales reached $144 million to United Press International. Takada left the band in 1999.
Jonathan Bouchet Manheim, CEO of K-3, Takada’s new lifestyle logo unveiled in 2020, said: “Kenzo Takada was incredibly creative; with a touch of genius, he imagined a new artistic and colorful story that combines East and West: his Japan and his life in Paris,” he said in an envoy to Forbes.
Adding: “I have been lucky enough to paint alongside him for many years, astonished by his interest and open mind. He seemed calm and shy at first, but he was full of humor.
“He was generous and knew how to take care of the other people he cared about. I had the joy of living . . . Kenzo Takada was the epitome of the art of living.
Born in Himeji, Japan, in 1939, Takada studied literature before dropping out of school and training one of the first male academics at Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, according to a New York Times profile. He told the Financial Times in 2019: “I was once said it was for a Japanese to paint in the fashion industry in Paris. . . Men were not allowed to enter design schools. Being artistic was not accepted into Japanese society in the 1950s. And most of all, my parents opposed the concept I paint fashionable.
His first fashion space was nicknamed “Jungle Jap” and he was shaped after his apartment was leveled to make way for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, which allowed him to go to Paris. After promoting sketches to other designers, he presented his first Parisian boutique. , then renamed the fashion brand Kenzo in New York in 1976.
Takada described her own early taste as floral, kimonos and textile motifs, and relied on nature’s “strong presence in Japanese art,” she told FT.
As speed grew, Kenzo introduced a men’s collection in 1983, followed by a line of perfumes in 1988. Kenzo sold the company to LVMH in 1993 after industry adjustments and the death of his partner, Xavier de Castella, in 1990. sell the corporate for various reasons . . . It was more and more commercial. Fashion changed, speed changed,” he told the FT, remaining a designer but moving away amicably in 1999.
Supermodel Naomi Campbell said on Instagram: “I’m so sad to hear about your loss today. . . I will not forget your smile and your humility . . . and the positivity that has shone in all of us.
Billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault described Takada as “one of the minds that helped make Paris the fashion capital. “His fashion resembled him: at the crossroads of cultures, array cheerful and generous, ” reported yesterday WWD.
Felipe Oliveira Baptista, artistic director of Kenzo, said: “With great sadness I learned of the passing of Mr. Kenzo Takada. His energy, kindness and skill were contagious. His fatherly spirit will live forever. Rest in peace, Master. “
Takada’s death occurs as Paris prepares for Fashion Week 2020 amid a hardening of blocking measures as covid’s number of instances in France increases.
I’m a specialist journalist at Forbes in London covering billionaires’ businesses, philanthropy, investment, taxes, generation and lifestyle. I studied at Goldsmiths,
I am a specialist journalist at Forbes, founded in London, covering multimillion-dollar business, philanthropy, investments, taxes, generation and lifestyle. I studied at Goldsmiths, University of London and joined Spear’s Magazine, where I covered everything from the Westminster bubble to the global realm of wealth management, personal banking, divorce law, asset alternatives, taxes, generation and inheritance. Notable examples come with an investigation of Switzerland’s bilateral ties with the European Union and via Bhutan, testing the thirst for democracy and love for its king. I joined Forbes in May 2019.