DESIGNERS
1970-1999 Kenzo Takada, a Japanese designer from Himeji was born in 1939 (Nast, n.d.). and passed away in 2020 due to COVID-19. Takada attended Bunka fashion college, Tokyo in 1958. His fashion interest developed from his sister’s fashion magazines (Borrelli-Persson, 2020). In 1964, when Takada was in his mid-twenties, he made the decision to travel to Paris. Only having planned to stay for a short period of 6 months, he overstayed his stay and ended up living in the city for 56 years (History of Kenzo Fashion Brand | Kenzo Fashion History | Fibre2fashion, n.d.). Kenzo had worked for multiple department stores and was therefore able to start his own brand in 1970. His brand at that time was called Jungle Jap which later on changed to Kenzo (Dirvanauskas, 2020). Kenzo introduced his label with womenswear designs and 1983, introduced menswear. LVMH bought the brand in 1993 and Kenzo Takada retired shortly thereafter in 1999 (Lane, 2020). The designer was known for his introduction of colours and playfulness within the brand’s designs.
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