Kenzo La Collection Memento Spring 2018
Kenzo’s La Collection Memento isn’t making a huge splash the way the main line’s tiger-emblazoned sweatshirts have, but designers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim are forging ahead with the archive-inspired offering. This time around, the California-based designers looked at denim to bring the label down to earth and perhaps to appeal to the die-hard denim collectors from designer Kenzo Takada’s native Japan.
“We wanted to tell a story of the past and the present. Emotions are running so high in America right now, and somehow this tale resonated with us,” Leon told Vogue.
And in true Kenzo fashion, the traditional fashion show was replaced with a three-act play that drew on traditional Japanese folklore and a battle between gods and mythical creatures. An eight-headed dragon took the stage and the half-hour-long presentation gave way to a collection of denim, jellies, and bucket hats.
Kenzo La Collection Memento Spring 2018
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Takada first introduced denim to his line in the ’70s and both Lim and Leon said that 30% of the collection was directly from the archive, which included a pair of stiff blue carpenter jeans and over-dyed red overalls. And though it was retro in tone, a majority of the pieces looked like they could walk into the streets right away and mesh with the throwback ’90s denim that’s taking over IG streams everywhere. Many of the accessories, which included shoes with socks, millennial-leaning throwback hats and the aforementioned jellies gave the hard shapes a little bit of boho spirit. When Takada showed denim on the runways over four decades ago, it was revolutionary. Now, the new designers at his label are taking his ideas and reworking them into a more modern conversation. Denim may not be as head-turning as it was back in the ’70s, but an entire theater performance-cum-fashion show focusing on the humble American standby certainly is.
For more information, visit www.kenzo.com.
Images courtesy Kenzo.
