Tonight’s Kenzo runway was a circuit of gold-painted sand that encircled the fountain inside the Palais Royal. We were barely a minute’s walk—in usual circumstances—from the Galerie Vivienne site of Nigo’s first show for the house in January 2022 (as well as founder Kenzo Takada’s first-ever store). Tonight, however, was far from usual: the house had mustered a front-row that included fan-magnet Vernon of Seventeen.

During a pre-show check-in, Nigo’s translator Toby Feltwell said: “This is his sixth show. He is really enjoying the process now…he always thought that what he wanted to do was going to take at least three years to work. And he feels like he’s kind of reaching the point that he wanted to get to when he started.” For the first time in that six-show tenure, Nigo decided to unravel his menswear and womenswear collections and instead show them back to back.

The menswear opened around a fine new bamboo camouflage pattern shown on a roomy trench, tropical blazer, and breaky pants. A pale green pajama suit was layered under a billowy duster coat; this look was topped by a double-brim baseball cap and a pair of the “tuned-up” rubber-soled zori sandals developed by a specialist company in Kyoto that made easy work of that golden sand. Double zipped mesh hoodies that seemed to reference camouflage netting were sometimes entirely fastened closed then worn under sunglasses in order to disguise the wearer’s face from instant recognition (which could be useful for Vernon when going incognito). The bamboo camouflage was further developed in embroidered satin bomber jackets and taped trousers apparently inspired by the pants favored by scaffolders in Japan.

Stitch-embroidered pale denims and utility khaki suits, new characterful patterns by Verdy on bombers and knits, and black suiting and a skirt illustrated with finely brush-stroked souvenir images of Paris followed. A laser-cut liner-profile suede jacket and matching patch-pocketed long short worn over a bamboo knit, shortly followed by an embroidered indigo denim full-look (including cap), both made for excellent ensembles.

In womenswear that bamboo camo blossomed into florals. The netting translated into crochet via vaguely atomic flower dresses and tops. And the strapping morphed into fringing that hung from floral scarf-skirts, tops, and dresses. Nigo said the palette of powerful color was derived from a pad of origami paper, an inspiration further explored in the folded-edge wrap mini-dresses in cream and maroon. At the end Pharrell Williams rose to his feet and clapped every step that Nigo made in his newly-designed Nike Air Force 3s around the golden circuit.