Kenzo Takada, the colour- and fun-loving Japanese designer who made his career in Paris has died of COVID-19 complications. He was 81.
Paris, in the early 1970s, had lost a bit of its fizz. Bringing a new energy to the city were artists and creators from outside France, including Takada. A graduate of Bunka College of Fashion, the designer moved to Paris in 1960 where he worked freelance until 1970 when he opened his Jungle Jap boutique.
Kenzo Takada in New York City with Carol la Brie on June 3, 1971.
Photo: Richard Gummere/New York Post Archives /(c) NYP Holdings, Inc. via Getty Images
In so naming his line, the designer threw down a gauntlet. “By insisting upon ‘Jap’ for his early collections,” curator Richard Martin has written, Takada “encourag[ed] a racist pejorative to be converted into a positive identity.” Takada is remembered for the way he fused cross-cultural inspirations into something new, and identifiably Kenzo. “When Kenzo began designing,” wrote Armand Limnander in Vogue, “his mantra was disarmingly simple: ‘The world is beautiful.” Takada was strong on separates; his use of layering was both literal and conceptual.
“My work was always about freedom and harmony,” Takada told the magazine in 2000. “I’d like to be remembered as a designer who crossed boundaries.” Indeed there was no boxing Takada in; his clothes were often roomy, allowing for unhindered motion, and he understood the need for fashion to have relevance off the runway. He brought the energy of the street, and the club, to his work in theatrical shows and night-into-day ravers.
Kenzo Takada circa 1991 in Paris, France
Photo: PL Gould/IMAGES via Getty Images
Takada became a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, in 1984. He sold Kenzo to LVMH in 1993, and retired six years later. This January he launched K-3 a homewares line.
“Kenzo Takada has, from the 1970’s, infused into fashion a tone of poetic lightness and sweet freedom which inspired many designers after him,” said Bernard Arnault, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, LVMH, in a statement. “The House he had established, Kenzo, still explores his vision. I’m very sad to learn about his passing and express my sincerest sympathy to his family and friends.”
“It is with great sadness that I have learned the passing away of Mr Kenzo Takada,” adds Felipe Oliveira Baptista, the newly appointed Kenzo creative director. “His amazing energy, kindness, talent, and smile were contagious. His kindred spirit will live forever.”
Editor
Laird Borrelli-PerssonCredit
Lead image: Victor VIRGILE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
