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PARIS: Japan’s most famous fashion designer, Kenzo Takada, founder of the global brand Kenzo, died in the French capital on Sunday at age 81 after contracting the coronavirus.
Takada died of complications related to COVID-19 at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a residential suburb on the western outskirts of the capital, his spokesman told French media.
Tributes have come to Takada, the first Japanese designer to move to Paris and known especially for his signature floral prints.
“Today, his optimism, zest for life and generosity remain pillars of our Maison (House). We will miss him very much and will always remember him,” the Kenzo fashion house he founded wrote on Twitter.
He “helped write a new page in fashion, at the confluence of East and West,” said Ralph Toledano of the Haute Couture Federation.
His death comes 50 years after he launched his first collection in Paris, which he adopted as his home. “Every wall, every sky and every passerby helps me build my collections,” he once said about the city.
He retired from fashion in 1999, six years after selling his brand to luxury conglomerate LVMH, and devoted his time to one-of-a-kind projects, including a design collection earlier this year.
DREAMED OF PARIS
Born in 1939 into a family of hoteliers, he decided to study art, not catering, becoming a star student at Bunka Gakuen University in Toyko, where he won first prize. He continued working for Sanai, a major chain of fashion stores, but he dreamed of Paris.
The 1964 Olympics finally gave him the opportunity to come to Europe. The block of flats in which he was renting an apartment was to be demolished to make way for a stadium.
Like all tenants, they paid him compensation and he decided to spend the money on a one-way ticket on a cargo ship to Marseille.
Arriving in Paris in the winter of 1965, hardly speaking French, the only job he could get was in a poodle salon.
In 1970, however, he rented premises at the Galerie Vivienne, which was then a rather run-down shopping arcade. “With some friends for three months we painted the walls with jungle scenes like Snake Charmer from Le Douanier Rousseau and named it Jungle Jap,” he later recalled.
There she held her first show with amateur models to save money. One of the 20 people invited included the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, who liked the collection so much that she posted it on the cover.
He became a name almost overnight and went on to reinvigorate the knitting industry with his contemporary interpretations.
In the early 1980s, when other Japanese designers were making their way into Paris, Takada was already well established on the French fashion scene.
His first men’s collection was presented in 1983 and his first perfume, Kenzo Kenzo, in 1988.
Since the early 1980s, boutiques have opened around the world in New York, London, Milan, Toyko, and Rome, followed later by Hong Kong, Munich, Venice, Bangkok, and Singapore.
PARIS CALLS A SON
Kenzo’s romantic style, with its eclectic mix of colors, hints of exoticism, ethnic prints and folk embroidery, suited the mood of the 1970s, but suited the sharper-looking eighties and nineties well.
He was inspired by his travels and Japanese workwear, such as his favorite military tunics and coats. Peruvian striped blankets, colored shawls, oriental blouses, peasant robes, printed velvet, were part of his signature.
One measure of his success was the fact that he fell prey to copyists. British designer Jasper Conran, interviewed about the problem, said he knew of a company in South Africa that specialized in scamming Kenzo, sewing by sewing. “They make a fortune, more than Kenzo thinks, but he can’t do anything about it.”
He protected his privacy by building a country house in the heart of Paris, just a few meters from the Opera Bastille, with an authentic tea pavilion and a carp pond.
“A designer with immense talent, he gave color and light their rightful place in fashion,” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said on Twitter. “Paris is today in mourning for one of her children.”
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