Kenzo returns to Japanese roots in history-making moment

PARIS (AP) — It was a fashion history-making moment in Paris for Kenzo on Sunday as it unveiled the debut for its first Japanese designer since house founder Kenzo Takada.

Nigo, 51, thus becomes only the second Asian designer at the head of a European high fashion label, alongside Bally’s Filipino-American Rhuigi Villaseñor. His appointment represents a milestone as the luxury industry wrestles more broadly with questions over racism and diversity.

The show venue of Galerie Vivienne underlined the historic importance of the debut collection, teasing out parallels between the Nigo and Takada. Both are Japanese, both studied at the same Tokyo fashion college decades apart, both have an East-meets-West artistic vision and are considered fashion code breakers. The arcade is the very location where Takada held his inaugural fashion show in 1970.

Nigo’s close friend Pharrell Williams and Kanye West applauded amid the ancient bookshops alongside an audibly enthusiastic audience after his vibrant creations were revealed.

Here are some highlights of Sunday’s fall-winter menswear shows at Paris Fashion Week:

KENZO’S FULL CIRCLE

Nigo first drew global renown with the streetwear brand A Bathing Ape that he began in 1993. Several decades later at the helm of one of LVMH luxury giant’s biggest labels Kenzo, those vibrant colors and streetwise prints were evident in creative fusion with some traditional Kenzo themes such the red poppy print.

Both designers, the house said, had “an understanding of the synthesis between Japanese and Western wardrobe traditions.” Nigo is “envisioning it as a tunnel toward the future and beyond the borders of fashion.”

Thus, exaggeratedly oversize berets mixed with clashing-color prints on silk, standout loose wool coats in maize, printed silk neck...