Interview With Kenzo Takada, One of The Ultimate Creators of the World

Published on: Apr 25, 2020 at 08:54

Kenzo Takada is quite versatile, founder of Kenzo, the designer remains in full swing. Between collaborations in the interior design field, art and in the creating of perfumes he still hasn’t retired. Dynamism is a big part of his personality, and the designer, whose name has become synonymous of fashion is one of the living witnesses to the globalization of fashion. CovetED had the pleasure of interviewing Kenzo Takada in Paris in the launch of his new interior design collection, K3.

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Remember the exclusive interview with Kenzo Takada at Maison et Objet 2020:

“I wanted to retire at the age of 60 so I left Kenzo in 2000 to retire, to travel. But travel and vacations weren’t enough for me. I needed something exciting, an adventure. After I retired from Kenzo I did a lot of collaborations with several brands such as Roche Bobois and then I realized I wanted a new brand and that’s how I imagined K3. K3 stands for K as Kenzo and the 3 means Enzo. If you read it together, it is Kenzo. But 3 it is also the balance, harmony in the Japanese culture. It is a blend of what Kenzo is today.”

Kenzo was born in Japan and lives in Paris. After a long journey in his brand, the fashion designer retired to pursue his dream. In 1999, six years after selling his eponymous brand to the LVMH group, Kenzo Takada withdrew from the fashion world. Although he was not completely stopped, developing exclusive collaborations in the most varied areas, the Japanese designer confessed to us that he “missed” the work. «Twenty years ago I didn’t want to work anymore, I wanted to travel», explained the fashion designer, who presented his first exhibition at Galerie Vivienne in 1970, triggering the brand’s success. After a long time doing partnerships and collaborations with the best interior design, cosmetic and perfume brands, the designer ended up creating a concept interior design brand called K3. The high-end interior design brand was present at a Parisian home show and the new K3 boutique in the French capital.

“There’s a real work on the patterns, on the fabrics, on the colour to find harmony, and I want to bring positivity and joy through these patterns. This is why I wanted all the furniture to be simple so they could enhance and show the pattern properly. If you look at all the furniture they all have simple lines, very sleek design but then the pattern has a more intricate and complex contrast.”

Always celebrating the lifestyle, Kenzo loves to have people at home, and to bring his way of living into the house of others was the key to creating K3. To create k3, Kenzo involved around 250 people. The collection stands out from others: the fabrics in the collection feature various print with vivid colours such as magenta, as well as subtle tones such as white, and the detailed combination of silver and black. The brand defines itself as being “soft and poetic”. The most challenging part of creating the brand was the time. “everything in September, the production and everything so we’ve had 4 months to create everything. We’re very happy to have such a team who is so committed that we were all able to launch k3 on time and with a very good product”. “We started 2 years ago, there were a few ideas but nothing finished. We just started the production in September. Normally we would have wanted to launch later but everyone was expecting for us to launch in Paris. And of course, we will work in improving the pieces”.

The brand’s first collection is based on and inspired by nature and the Japanese cherry blossom Sakura, as well as Maiko (geisha apprentice), with her delicate and refined heart, says the brand. The final inspiration of the collection consists of the three main concepts of majesty’s powerful and monochromatic expression, the Shogun (military ruler), seen through exclusive prints in bright colours. All his creations carry a ‘kintsugi’ symbol, in honour of the Japanese art of repairing broken porcelain and ceramics with lacquer, mixed with powdered gold. Japan continues to be the biggest inspiration of the fashion designer. In k3, the designer used ‘Kensugi’ as a visual identity in the brand. “We’re using the Japanese culture and giving it a more modern and contemporary twist.”, the designer combines Japanese and western aesthetics and interprets them in his way.

“The idea would be to create a different universe always inspired by nature and organic shapes, but they would like to develop other themes because today we have 3. The idea is to continue this while developing other themes.” Kenzo Takada.

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