Kenzo Takada, known to all as Kenzo, died on Sunday, October 4, of headaches in Covid-19 at the American hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris.
With wonderful sadness we learn that today our expensive friend Kenzo Takada, an inspiring and prodigious author, passed away and we are proud to collaborate with him, we will not forget his smile and his joy of living. fashion/design and we all mourn it tonight and offer our sincere condolences to your loved ones. Kenzo Takada left us that day. He was a glorious guy and an inspiring author. We were proud to paint with him. Fashion and ornament globals are in mourning tonight. We will not forget your smile and your communicative joy of living.
A post shared through Kenzo Takada – K (@kenzotakada_official) on October 4, 2020 at 9:33 p. m. Pdt
Born on February 27, 1939, in Himeniji, a small town in Hygo Prefecture, Kansai region and the fifth of seven children, Kenzo developed a huge breakthrough for global fashion from an early age through reading the fashion magazines his sister brought home.
At the age of 18, coerced through his parents, he enrolled in the Faculty of Literature of the University of Foreign Studies in Kobe City, but after only a year he dropped out of school opposing his family’s wishes, also for the death of his father, and in 1958 enrolled at Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo. Kenzo was the first male student at the school, who until then had only been open to female students. While in Bunka, Kenzo won a design competition, the Son Award in 1961 and reveled running at the Sanai branch, where she designed up to 40 dresses according to the month as a women’s collection designer. After completing his studies and obtaining his degree and then moving to Paris in 1964, he was the first Japanese designer to settle in Paris.
The French capital a reference for Kenzo, Yves Saint-Laurent his reference stylist and one of his teachers in the Bunka, Chie Koike, studied at the School of the Parisian Haute Couture Union Chamber through transmitting his preference to meet and settle down. in Paris.
His move to the French capital was characterized by a special fact: in preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the Japanese government demolished Kenzo’s apartment with a refund of giant money, through which he was able to leave.
The boat holiday lasted one month in which he visited many other cities such as Hong Kong, Saigon, Mumbai and Marseille, until his arrival at Lyon station on 1 January 1965. Kenzo’s first impression on his arrival in Paris was terrible, he called it “sad and dark” but without delay replaced his brain when the driving force of the taxi took him to Notre Dame, which he described as “magnificent. “
At first, Kenzo survived by promoting his sketches in fashion houses for 25 francs and applying as a designer for a textile company called Pisanti.
In 1970, while at a flea market, Kenzo met a woman who wanted to hire him a small area at the Vivienne Gallery. Kenzo agreed to make his “little” dream come true by opening a shop where he could exhibit and sell his creations. so his first “Jungle Jap” store was born.
For his first collection, presented of course at the Galerie Vivienne, he spent $200 at the Saint Pierre market in Montmartre.
His efforts paid off very quickly: in June 1970, ELLE mag put one of his drawings on the cover; moved his store to Passage Choiseul; his collection was also presented in New York and Tokyo in 1971; the following year, he won the Fashion Editor Club of Japan award.
In October 1976, the first Kenzo arrived at Place des Victoires.
His exhibits were incredible, in 1978 and 1979 they took position a circus tent where, to close the parade, he had brought an organization of women on horseback in transparent uniforms and he paraded in the chair of a giant elephant.
His first men’s collection presented in 1983, in August 1984, The Limited Store announced that he had signed a contract with the Japanese designer to create a less expensive clothing line called Album through Kenzo and in 1986 introduced the Kenzo Jungle line.
The originality of its design, its ability to combine other cultures and styles such as Japanese culture and European style, oversized pieces and exclusive silhouettes have made Kenzo Takada one of the highest and esteemed designers of our time.
After the sale of the logo to LVMH in 1993, Kenzo remained at the helm for another 6 years before leaving it permanently in 1999, replacing through Antonio Marras (2003-2011), Humberto Leon and Carol Lim (2011-2019). ) and, as of this year, Felipe Oliveira Baptista.
The space published an official note that reads: “It is with immense sadness that the LVMH organization and KENZO learned of the death of its founder, Kenzo Takada”, while the artistic director Felipe Oliveira Baptista added: “His energy, kindness , skill and smile were contagious. Your soulmate will live forever. “
Balmain presented the spring/summer 2021 collection at Paris Fashion Week with an exhibition that combines virtual and IRL.
The decoration designed for the instance through Olivier Saillard included the installation of 58 OLED screens in the front row, in collaboration with the South Korean company LG, which showed visitors who can be provided at the fair.
Digitally connected guests included Anna Wintour, Jennifer Lopez, Cara Delevingne, Jovovich Mile, Usher, Cindy Crawford and many others.
The total exhibition was a tribute to the founder of the house, the French dressmaker Pierre Balmain, and was planned through the artistic director of the house, Olivier Rousteing, closing very informally through video calls in Zoom, sitting around the kitchen tables or on the sofas of the living room.
The collection presented highlighting 3 key themes of the house: heritage, network and optimism.
Rousteing sought to percentageize his vision and the motivations that led him to achieve a safe taste and not: “This house, as I say from time to time, has optimism and audacity in its DNA. Let us never say that 75 years later, he was in a position to place an ambitious bet after years of war, profession and suffering, was able to pass and founded his fashion space in a volatile time of scarcity, tensions and difficulties without delay after the liberation of France. He was young, ambitious and convinced to expect better days. And his energy, boldness and optimism have made this love one of the forces that have helped Bring Paris back to the fashion capital of the world. “
As for the resolution of placing the screens in the front row, he said: “Being forced to separate has taught us how much we have to be together. Post-confinement fashion efforts have made it very transparent that design thrives when there is consistent dialogue, an exchange of shared concepts and experiences, and we all seek to locate new tactics to do so. We have all experienced the impressive strength of solidarity, compassion and tenacity of 2020 that assures us that we can and will pass through this moment and come out stronger. “
The elements that characterized the sample were: the return of the PB monogram as a complete print, the use of crystals, double button blazers combined with shorts, jackets with pagoda shoulders, a denim look in general and pants of the 70s combined with more vintage The color palette saw gray and black as the main tones, as well as fluorescent tones such as lime and fuchsia.
At the end of the show, a new assignment was also presented in collaboration with Apple: a playlist called Signature organized through Rousteing himself and Apple Music editors, which focuses on the concepts of identity, empowerment and belonging and comprises pieces through artists that reflect the identity of the logo such as Depeche Mode, The Weekfinish and many others.
During Paris Fashion Week that took place those days, Anthony Vaccarello, artistic director of Saint Laurent, presented in an interview with Business of Fashion a new and special collaboration with the former Austrian designer and sculptor Helmut Lang that consists of the creation of a series of works. elaborated with the production waste from Saint Laurent’s old collections.
The collaboration is part of the Saint Laurent Rive Droite project, Lang’s paintings are based on the reuse of all those clothes, prototypes, accessories and jewelry never finished on the market or unfinished through the French house, to create sculptures using a crushing procedure and mixed with a pigmented resin and then molded into giant Array aluminum molds until they are authentic totems.
Fascinated for a long time by Lang and his modern and minimalist language that since the early 1990s has redefined the concept of luxury and the capacity of clothing, Vaccarello first tried to bring him back to the world of fashion proper, after the abandonment of 2005, providing a collaboration founded on denim. Lang refused, but said he was in a position for a joint venture that would concentrate on his work of art.
Introducing this new collaboration, Anthony Vaccarello said: “I’ve been fascinated with Helmut for years. For my generation, he is the ultimate designer of the “90”, while Lang added: “Anthony was the first fashion user to have interaction in a collaboration aimed at my art. As I have collaborated with artists on other tactics of my fashion career, it was desirable to be in the opposite position. “
Helmut Lang x Anthony Vaccarello’s sculptures for Saint Laurent Rive Droite will be exhibited at the Rive Droite boutique in Paris and then moved to Los Angeles and all will be on sale.
First presented at the Future Sport Forum, the AMBUSH x Nike Dunk High will be part of a giant collaborative collection committed to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Following the postponement of the Olympic Games until 2021, all collaborations committed to the occasion have yet been postponed between the Tokyo-based logo and Nike committed to Dunk.
#AMBUSH x @nike DUNK SKETCH 1. er launched in December 2020
A post shared through AMBUSH® (@ambush_official) on September 30, 2020 at 11:26 p. m. Pdt
Yoon Ahn had stated in May that two more colors would be published in addition to “Active Fuchsia”, and the Korean-American designer posted on her Instagram profile a photo dressed in a black-and-white pair to announce the upcoming release.
Try those @nike x @ambush_official Dunks. They’re going to ????????. By 12. 2020 and just to release it, they will be in universal metric size ‘MENS’ for men and women #nike #ambush #dunks #swoosh
A post shared via YOON (@yoon_ambush) on Sep 30, 2020 at 4:46 AM PDT
The AMBUSH x Nike Dunk High “Black/White” features a two-tone leather rod with a long black Swoosh on each side of the shoe. On the heel there is a type of clip that protrudes on the back, the shared mark is on the tongue label while the toe is made of perforated leather with giant veins, unlike the smooth leather used for the rest of the shoe. To close the shoe design, we wear black locking laces and an all-white outsole.
According to the caption of the Instagram post through AMBUSH, the shoe is expected to launch in December.
It is one of the few museums that remains closed after the closure of the closure in France and the concern of not reopening strongly, but fortunately, the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris will reopen on October 8 with a special exhibition.
A true tribute to Betty Catroux, the model/muse par excellence of the French designer who “through her knew how to bring her visions to life and maybe herself”, in the words of Anthony Vaccarello, artistic director of Saint Laurent, to The New York Times.
A close friendship between Betty and Yves. La called her twin, her female incarnation, while she liked to call herself her bipolar double.
They met in 1967 at a well-known Parisian club, New Jimmy’s, and the spark erupted, a spark that unleashed an intense and fiery, platonic but at the same time incredibly passionate, deep and immeasurable love.
For Yves Saint-Laurent, Betty Catroux embodies the essence of the aesthetics she expresses with her creations. Andromine and a balance that would be described as bourgeois were the characteristics that encouraged the French author and amassed the fortunes of both.
She took her first steps into global fashion at age 17 when Chanel chose her as a model, Betty soon learned that this global was not for her, hated it and at 19 left it all. and the friendship with Yves Saint-Laurent convinced her to come back. “My greatest ambition in life has been not to move a finger,” he once said, and in fact, global modeling never saw it as a genuine job.
Betty Catroux has been married for years to Francois Catroux, a famous interior designer with which she has two daughters: Daphné, curator of Christian Dior and Maxime, editor of one of the main French publishing groups, FlammarionArray.
From 11:00 a. m. on Thursday, October 8 at 6:00 p. m. On Sunday, at number five on Avenue Marceau of the Yves Saint Laurent Museum, all the garments Betty donated to the Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint-Laurent Foundation, which over the years has been given to her through Yves he own.
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