As the final show on the men’s calendar in Paris, and on a day widely celebrated as Gay Pride elsewhere in the world (here, the parade is next Saturday), the Kenzo crew envisioned an underground garden party where guys and girls congregated for some sort of vibrant and splashy special occasion. Accordingly, they dressed up: in color-blocked ladylike looks and rakish fluorescent check suits; in semi-sheer flounced dresses or patterned knit tops with extra-roomy pants; and in various ratios of electric blue, saffron, magenta, and bottle green. As in previous seasons, the event first presented the women’s lineup followed by the men’s, and truth be told, this template could benefit from both a reshuffling and an edit. But with the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, a talented Chicago band, maintaining a steady groove, the start-to-finish performance portrayed Kenzo at its best. Credit, of course, goes to Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, who interpreted their theme with wide creative license. “It’s traditional ceremony but twisted,” said Leon, who was dressed in the collection’s hard-to-miss fluoro yellow nylon dress patterned with black roses. Think: femme fatale goes to Burning Man.
Back when Leon and Lim first imposed their plucky vision on the brand, graphic sweatshirts boasting a roaring tiger made waves; here, it was a graphic guipure lace of phoenixes. The pivot to sporty then and polish now is revealing; we tend to think of Kenzo as globally minded, eclectic, and inclusive more than trendsetting. Yet when its captains are steering the brand toward hybrid tailoring (all those great jackets backed with drawstring nylon) and extroverted cocktail attire (sculpted sleeves, opera gloves, bejeweled tops, slim python-print and check pantsuits), its youthful followers are likely to scan the more grown-up offering and opt in. For them, all these bygone Kenzo codes will look fresh; the show’s vibe exhilarating. “What we like to create is a moment in time, a memory you can take with you,” said Lim. Quite literally, a decades-old invitation from when Kenzo showed in the Louvre courtyard was reborn as a rubberized shopping tote.
