Forget the standard page of program notes or mood board; Carol Lim and Humberto Leon explained tonight’s show with a loosely autobiographical film shot and projected in real time. “We’re going full meta this season!” Lim enthused in the midst of a backstage scene as large as any Hollywood production. Based on a true story from early in their friendship, when Leon made the momentous decision to bleach his hair, the ambitious, telenovela-style intermission between Kenzo’s men’s and women’s lineups played up the family reaction that ensued. “Asian melodramas are real,” Leon quipped, pausing to greet Courtney Love.
Since arriving at Kenzo just over five years ago, the American duo has become an offbeat, upbeat presence on the Paris calendar, and for several seasons they’ve held the final men’s week spot with the unofficial expectation of a grand finale. It wasn’t all that long ago that a live-streaming fashion show felt like a big deal. Here, the 28 cameras piecing together this well-coordinated performance featuring a large cast of local, primarily Asian actors introduced a complex but undeniably personal dynamic to the experience.
“The storytelling is the fundamental aspect of where we always begin,” said Leon. “Our collections are fully story-told, and then we carry that train of thought into the shows, so the shows [become] a big story that you’re watching come to life.” Whereas Leon’s bleached hair was the anecdotal starting point, a broader cult cinema message—from Chungking Express to Interview With the Vampire—was what determined the clothes on a larger scale. The women’s lineup, for instance, featured Kenzo-campy movie posters as prints, irreverent ladylike looks—think femme fatale–in-training—and candy-foil party dresses. For the guys, high-waist pants with shrunken sweater vests, extroverted outerwear, and shimmery leisure suits signaled sufficient flair to excite the young Humbertos of today. In keeping with the flashback to 1998, the designers styled the looks with relevant archive pieces and customized the delicate floral motifs from old prints.
Amidst the various film references, there were also traces of fashion references new and old. But much the same way the designers admitted to watching hundreds of movies together through the years, and the hazy soundtrack mash-up would have represented all the music moments shared, they’ve surely pored over hundreds of designer collections. And all that culture was coalescing in a way that younger customers will discover for the first time. The collections were not without their awkward aspects. Yet as the characters danced to “Dreams” by the Cranberries, this seemed complementary to Lim and Leon’s own-your-style (and your bleached hair) message.
