By the back end of a long season, its busiest days can feel like a fever dream. And of certain moments you wonder, did that really happen? This evening at Kenzo, for instance, did André 3000 really sit behind a small pile of radishes as he observed a coat fashioned from scores of orgiastically conjoined stuffed bunnies while “Rabbit” by the very niche London cockney-rock duo Chas & Dave played loudly around us?
My phone footage confirms that, yes, this happened.
We were at the first dedicated Kenzo womenswear show since the tail end of 2016. Nigo had overseen the collection and show, down to curating the selection of furniture that had been laid out for guests in the house’s Rue Vivienne headquarters. However the man himself was absent due to a schedule conflict. So instead it was left to Joshua Bullen, who Nigo recently appointed design director, to rabbit on about the clothes we were here to see.
As Bullen explained it, Nigo was within the collection: the New Era collaboration caps and the Jacob the Jeweler style belts were self-referential nods from the creative director. Nigo and Bullen’s shared fascination with punk and mod explained the elegantly waisted Harris tweed topcoat and jacket, the checkerboard rompers, and the dramatically cropped duffle and bomber, which Bullen said were meant to reflect a DIY attitude to customization. The fur-cuffed, Italian-made shawl collar evening jackets were a Johnny Rotten-ish gesture of anti-establishment appropriation.
The balloon pants shape that ran across the silhouette (new raw Japanese denim jeans apart) plus the kimono jackets and the florals were OG Kenzo references. Another note present through the collection was an assemblage approach to underwear: pulled down camisoles peeked over woolen bloomers. The closing bevy of looks cut in pink or blue poly-fur sourced from a French stuffed toy specialist included oversized bunny coats and that banging bunny orgy coat mentioned earlier: a hopped up, anarchically amorous eye was at play. Mobb Deep, Blondie, Patti Smith, and the Sex Pistols came before Chas & Dave: this soundtrack, like the collection, was a wild mix but never randomly assembled. Young, cool, and provocative, this return to a full womenswear moment in the house’s real-life home added up to a bouncing Kenzo show.
