Kenzo's jungle collection roars
By Agni Amorita
JAKARTA (JP): It was November 1998 when Kenzo Takada, the fashion guru from Japan, visited the African Fashion Festival. Held in the Air Tenere Desert area, Nigeria, the event gave him a lot of inspiration. In particular, two beautiful African animals, the elephant and the tiger, inspired him for his latest collection and were later introduced in his fashionable works, which included fabrics and perfumery. Last Friday, the mysterious jungle collection from Kenzo was presented during a teatime fashion show in the Cascade Lounge of the Mulia Hotel.
The jungle is translated as green, blue and brown. The long silhouette, pants and skirts in a vertical cut, are matched in safari-inspired outfits, namely, big pockets and ruffled denim. The humid and mysterious jungle is also seen in leaf and floral prints with cold colors, especially green and blue. When it comes to warm colors, Kenzo only picks dark brown or hard magenta. To liven them up, he adds an African traditional ornament as lining on its sleeves and the jacket's facing.
Although the items in the collection were not brand new, the show went over well as the lounge was packed with people. The hotel even went a step further by providing a small counter to sell items from the show, all with reduced prices of up to 70 percent off, with most selling under Rp 1 million a piece.
Kenzo's timeless collections can be considered as one of his golden achievements as a Parisian fashion designer. Kenzo said good-bye to his once glamorous career as he retired at the end of last year. He now prefers to spend his time traveling, visiting friends and living a more spiritual life. His 30 years of hard work in fashion which successfully lifted him out of Japan and into the capital of the fashion world, Paris, was a glorious triumph for him. Kenzo signed up to become part of the giant LVMH or Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy Group in 1993. In this fashion kingdom, Kenzo was helped by 37-year-old Gilles Rosier. Like his boss, Rosier had a modern sense of fabrics and attention to detail. Plus, Rosier also shared Kenzo's enthusiasm for travel, thanks to his upbringing in Africa. Kenzo, famous for his collections which were inspired by his Japanese roots and peripatetic lifestyle, left a mark on the international fashion world, especially in the 1970s. He exited the fashion world as a lasting phenomenon.
His African jungle collection, for example, attracts attention from around the world, including from his colleagues. In Milan, Romeo Gigli shares Kenzo's African mood with his latest collection, by introducing python pants. Dolce & Gabbana agreed with Kenzo's "safarimania" by offering shirts printed with tropical forest ornaments, including sunflowers and butterflies, as their newest item. And the list is growing longer as the natural spirit has been considered as this millennium's fashion trend.