For the KENZO Spring-Summer 2024 Campaign, Artistic Director Nigo extends the bridge between Japan and France built through the season proposal. Originally presented on the Passerelle Debilly – the footbridge stretched from Palais de Tokyo to the Eiffel Tower over the River Seine – the collection intersperses to the streets and salons of Paris. Shot on location at the monuments and in the interiors of the city, imagery by Keizo Kitajima and moving imagery by Frank Lebon intertwine the wardrobe’s authentic Japanese construction with the elegance of classical French spaces and Parisian landmarks.
Fronted by a cast from around the world, the campaign reflects the cross-cultural chemistry at the heart of KENZO – embodied by the legacy of Kenzo Takada and the contemporary vision of Nigo – and mirrors it in the global community that personifies the Maison. The fusion is illustrated in the collection’s memories of City Pop, the 1980s’ musical mélange of pop, funk and boogie, and the preppy and poppy look it generated. Re-contextualised in the campaign’s Parisian environments, the wardrobe’s Japanese silhouettes and their Western surroundings echo the code-switches intrinsic to the vision of Nigo to whom the introduction of non-Western influences to the domain of Paris fashion is key.
The campaign was photographed in Rue Vivienne where the Maison is located, in Place des Victoires which housed its historical Paris flagship store, around the Arc de Triomphe and its metro, and in the Hotel de Soyecourt best known as the one-time residence of Karl Lagerfeld. Following the Fall-Winter 2023 campaign for which KENZO invited Keizo Kitajima and Frank Lebon to Japan to shoot the collection, the Maison continues its creative dialogue with the Japanese photographer and British filmmaker in Paris. Here, Kitajima captures the Spring-Summer 2024 collection in everyday portraits, while, in film, Lebon asks the cast to draw the things they like most about Paris. The painterly approach is echoed in trompe l’oeil backdrops featured throughout the moving imagery.
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