Kenzo Takada – 80th anniversary

by Abdon FLORES

Fashion icon Kenzo Takada has turned 80 years old. With the fashion week going on in Paris, this was a perfect occasion to pay homage to one of the most influent Japanese designers of all times. Indeed, M. Takada made of his name a worldwide hit since Kenzo has the amplitude of almost any important brand you have in mind. The talent M. Takada showed was notable and enough to succeed in a era, the early eighties, where only Western designers seemed to have access.

You can call it impulse, or energy, or unbridled desire of triumph, all these factors were essential in the history of Kenzo Takada success. He was born in 1939 in Himeji, a town famous for his old castle. After studying fashion design in Tokyo’s Bunka Fashion College, he moved to Paris in 1964. A hard adventure began before finding his way in 1983, a quest whose glory was closely linked to the world of perfumes: Kenzo’s perfumes were an immediate must have.

 

 

Eighty years later, when life seems to be already defined, a fancy party was threw at the Pavillon Ledoyen (owned by the traiteur Potel et Chabot) in order to celebrate a great designer but, what is most important, a generous man. Many of his friends attended this Parisian soirée like jewel designer Elie Top, Jacques Shu, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim (Kenzo’s actual designers) and many fashionistas who are, in a way, the essence of what fashion is.