Goodbye Kenzo: the inventor of "Flower Power"

Paris – 4th September 2020:

Kenzo Takada dies, due to Coronavirus

Born in Japan in 1939, Kenzo Takada was the first Japanese creator to settle in Paris. Kenzo loved flowers , animal motifs , saturated colors . He shuffled at random and the result was nothing more than a liberating, immediate and energetic mixture.

His first shop was called, not surprisingly, Jungle Jap , and was a cross between flower children and Saturday night fever. In other words: multiculturalism and inclusion .

Mixing the unthinkable in colorful garments and hypnotic and mysterious jungle prints and bringing street culture into haute couture were the particular signs of this old school designer, considered a bearer of poetic lightness and sweet freedom in the fashion of the 70s .

In fact, in the Paris of those years, Kenzo was a fish out of water in the black and conceptual post-atomic shockwave of Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto and from the futurism of Issey Miyake .

A fashion designer who doesn’t compromise

Since 1999, the Japanese designer had sold his Maison to the Lvmh group.

At a time when marketing strategies began to predominate over invention and creativity, Kenzo moves away from this fashion system that no longer belongs to him , but stays in Paris.

The Ville lumière was for Kenzo the city where he could make his dream come true, going against the wishes of his family and becoming the first Japanese designer to show in the French fashion capital.

And it is here that yesterday, October 4, 2020, his heart stopped beating after 81 years of life after several days of hospitalization at the American hospital of Neuilly-sur-Seine </ em >.

The news came on a gray afternoon in the French capital in the middle of Fashion Week , with large groups and generalist fashion houses pretending nothing happened and the health emergency advancing.

The cause of death? COVID-19 . A symbol of how much this pandemic does not look anyone in the face, Kenzo invites us not to let our guard down and, for this time, to break down the limits only with the imagination.

Posted By

Viola Marchesi

Viaggiatrice e aspirante fashion designer. La creatività e il mio spirito libero sono ciò che meglio caratterizza il mio essere, un concentrato di positive vibes. Ho iniziato a scrivere quasi per gioco ma ho scoperto che mi piace più del previsto.