Welcome to the dreamlike, initiatory and travel world of Kenzo Takada, version Felipe Oliveira Baptista – Portuguese by birth and became recently French – who shares with the founder of the Maison Kenzo – born in Japan but French at heart – one thing in common: the multiculturalism.
Two personalities blend and their common points shape a wardrobe of convergence. United in culture, their dialogue took root in Paris, the fantasy capital of fashion.
The debut coed collection of Oliveira Baptiste – who was appointed creative director of the French House last July – for Kenzo was all about global travel, recalling founder Kenzo Takada’s famous journey on a boat travelling from Tokyo to France – a youthful ingénue in search of glory and couture in Paris. Most of the cast was wrapped up as if in a gale on that liner; nearly every face-obscuring hats and head coverings with cowls, caps, parkas that spread out like wings and down jackets that become sleeping bags; inclement weather incoming.
And then, there were summer memories of Felipe Oliveira Baptista’s
childhood in the Azores and a memory of his parents about to stage a skydiving in Mozambique.
These emotional reference points converse and come together into elongated tunics and djellabas done in mash-up prints where giant tiger heads fought it out with abstract expressionist daubs. These tigers alluded to the Kenzo signature and to the works of neo-realist Lisbon painter Júlio Pomar who, fascinated by these majestic animals, created in the 1980s a major series of works on this feline.
©Kenzo
