Kenzo Takada news and archive

Post-Kenzo and Miyake: 'A turning point for Japanese fashion'

At Tokyo's prestigious Bunka Fashion College, students concentrate in silence that is broken only by the sound of scissors and sewing machines as they strive to emulate the global success of alumni like Kenzo. The loss of greats Kenzo Takada and Issey Miyake heralds the end of a fashion era, decades after Japanese design revolutionised Parisian...

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People

Japanese designer Kenzo Takada dies of coronavirus at 81

Japan's most famous fashion designer Kenzo Takada, founder of the global Kenzo brand, died in the French capital on Sunday aged 81 after contracting coronavirus. Tributes have poured in for Takada, the first Japanese designer to decamp to Paris and known especially for his signature floral prints. "Today, his optimism, zest for life and...

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Fashion

Kenzo comes out of retirement for a new kind of designing

He could be sipping cocktails in his silk slippers yet fashion legend Kenzo is back at the age of 80. But the Japanese creator is not diving back into the frenzied world of catwalk shows. Instead he will be throwing himself into the more sedate world of interior design Friday by launching a brand called K3. Kenzo sold his hugely successful...

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People|INTERVIEW

Fashion legend Kenzo lifts veil on colourful legacy

Kenzo Takada, the Japanese designer who retired at the height of his colourful career nearly 20 years ago, wants to show the world how he came up with the pathbreaking designs that helped catapult a wave of Japanese creators onto the Paris stage. After years of taking time for himself, "I again needed to do something, to work," he told AFP. "I...

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Fashion |BACKGROUND

How Japan's first dressmaking school changed women's lives

Born out of a drive to make Western-style clothing accessible, Tokyo's Bunka Fashion College unleashed a sartorial and social revolution among Japanese women after it opened nearly a century ago. And while its current 21-storey concrete structure in the heart of Tokyo's business district doesn't scream high-fashion, it is the place to be for...