Biography on Kenzo the Designer - Research Paper Example

Biography on Kenzo the Designer In his first demonstration, Kenzo has fifty audients who saw him as not being serious. According to them, Kenzo had strange bright clothes most of which were made from Japanese cotton. For the first instance, the audience laughed; apparently, they had no idea who between them and Kenzo will have the last laugh. Kenzo was born on February 27, 1939 in the village of the ancient castle Himeyi founded in the province of Hyogo (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003). He was the last born in a family of five and was a son of a teahouse owner. In his school life, Kenzo was so much struck by models that he saw a Sunflower magazine from which he tried to copy them (Craik, 2008). After the high school, Kenzo asked his apparent to allow him join the same fashion school as the one attended by his sister. Kenzo never wanted to proceed to the university, but wanted to learn more about fashion; however, his parent refused and he joined the University of Kobe Gaibo to study English literature (The Riverside dictionary of biography, 2005). His spirits to study or get involved in artwork was too high, after only a semester at the university, Kenzo left for Tokyo where he worked in an apprentice house as a painter (Sainderichin, 1999). For this work, Kenzo was being paid seven dollars per month. It should be noted that, he was the first male student to be admitted to the Japanese oldest school of fashion, Bunka Gakuen. Before his admission, the Bunka Gakuen School of fashion was purely girls’ school. Kenzo once said, "If I started now (referring to the school), I would have stayed in Tokyo (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003; p. 32)." After his stay in the Bunka Gakuen, he first worked for the “Sana”, a network fashion store and later he moved to fashion magazine in the capital where he worked as a male model. Despite his modelling work in Tokyo, Kenzos’s main desire was to move to Paris (Sainderichin, 1999). He wanted to follow the footsteps of his teacher, Koike who had just returned from Paris, France. Not only did he wanted to follow the footsteps of his teacher, Koike had told him of the nice Yves Saint Laurent collections and wonderful events that usually take place in the Paris fashion world (The Riverside dictionary of biography, 2005). A little later, Kenzo received a fortune of 350 thousand yen as compensation for the demolition of the housed he lived. Using the money, on January 1, 1965, Kenzo arrived in Marseilles where he boarded a train to Paris. He did not know any French, did not have a job, he had no money, life was quite silent for him, and everything seemed silent to him in France (Craik, 2008). Everything in Paris looked seemed an open book to him, he once said, "Anywhere in the world I did not feel as good as in Paris, here every stone, every cloud, every passer-by helped me in the work, although in my heart I remained a Japanese" (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003; p. 45). Since the year 1965, Kenzo regularly visited all the major shows including Chanel, Doir, and Cardin. This movement and shows made Kenzo to indulge in different and numerous cultures including Haute couture that He described as having unattainable goals, perfect clothes, and a parallel universe that is moved far from real life (Sainderichin, 1999). Therefore, he realized that if he could have moved the normal way, he could have achieved anything. According to Kenzo, it takes decades to realize grandiose names; however, for him he had something replete, something new in Paris, something that he had never tried (The Riverside dictionary of biography, 2005). Kenzo did not stay for long before he realized his dream (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003). Everything worked well for him and opened his eyes for everything and every collection including the firs collections he saw at Kurrezha. He considered this a new form of haute couture that could close just a mortal. With time, Kenzo made 30 cloth models five of which he sold at ridiculous amount ($5) and these were bought the wife of Louis Feraud. Kenzo’s work started getting recognition and he had a rough time fulfilling orders for many large retail stores. The high demand and diversity in his work, Kenzo later learned about how to work with European colours and fabrics. He took his every day’s collection to the bank and he dreamed for his own case (Sainderichin, 1999). His significant and quick successes were attributed for by the youth fashions. Most of his youth models featured in an inimitable bold colours and patterns. Kenzo mixed ‘Savage,’ cage, flora, and bar drawings in most appropriate proportions and combinations that left an impression joy and life ‘pleasure from holidays.’ Notably, according to Kenzo, his art and style was the most destructive form of Haute Couture since it was a combination of the Far East and other influential Parisian chic. Five years after arriving in Paris, Kenzo met his old college classmate, Atsuko Kondo (Craik, 2008). Kondo had the most charming boutique in Paris during those days; the “Dzhep Jungle” or the Jungle Jap that was located on the Grands Boulevards and away from the “golden triangle” but near the salons maters of the haute couture (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003). Initially, the Kimonoobraznye clothes amazed and amused and this is what is expected of the Japanese. In early 70’s, the Japanese had two main areas of kimono that included the simple and very strict or the very colourful all of which were presented by the Japanese Kabuki theatre. it should be noted that Kenzo decided to contrite on the latter. Very few people knew Kenzo especially with his change of career in music, singing geisha, and laughter (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003). Despite being laughed at during his first presentation was not quite a blow to him; starting with a jacket for him was a natural thing. According to him, there are times that he used to sew clothes for his sisters and dolls and he notes that he could wear these clothes around the daughters of the far West (Sainderichin, 1999). However, he noted that in Paris, he was determined to find something different in life; therefore, he decided to mix kimonos with Western clothing that included broad shoulders, sweater spacious, wide sleeves, straight line, and overhead. In the 70s, main cloths that dominated the market were wears with adaptable, narrow sleeved, and shoulders and some fashions signified body of the needed space or the physical and spiritual domains (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003). To lead to a new fashion, Kenzo among other players began to enter a new fashion that was specifically known as the three dimensional fashion. The main reason that Kenzo adopted and developed the 3D version is that Japanese are genetically engineered; thus, most of them do not understand clothes, emphasis on the shape, and tightness. According to Kenzo, the Japanese chokes due to them being glued to their old ways of doing things (Sainderichin, 1999). However, volumetric wear was quite a revolutionary. However, within historical background, Kenzo wears never wanted to neither enter nor emphasize on the waist and hips; he notes that he wanted to remove his body from the public display. With this spirit and notion, Kenzo dubbed “the new deconstruction” immediately, couture destructuree a trend like no other (Sainderichin, 1999). With is this Kenzo imbibed that spirit of the youth riots especially within the Paris 60-x. 70-e starry decade Kenzo. Within the period of five years, his collections collection eliminated the buckles, buttons, and lightning from the overlying cut and darts (The Riverside dictionary of biography, 2005). The Kenzo’s new collection created a balance that was direct, clean cut, free, rhythms, and colour combinations a design that was unusual for the European eyes (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003). According to Kenzo, if the collection was filled with colours, then it was colourful. In other words, for a man who was less talkative and spoke little French, flowers always remained special way he could express love for life and freedom (Craik, 2008). Additionally, the flower meant a lot to him in term or in relation to hippy movement; therefore, in his entire artwork or fashion world, flowers made a great impact to his work and life. In the mid 70s to 80s, Kenzo’s work and boutiques remained favourable and it was the most fashionable in Paris. According to some contributors, the world was going crazy from all fashions associated with Kenzo especially through his embodied imaginary designs. In 1981, he drew linen and slept with a golden dust surface Victiore, this was a luxury tent erected around the ancient castle in Bordeaux (Sainderichin, 1999). He later decorated with thousands of flowers and later organized symbolic demonstration places in Paris. In 1983, he opened a series of men’s fashion alongside women's clothing using combined fabrics of different ranging colours and in the year 1988, Kenzo released the first ever Kenzo Perfume (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003). In the year 1993, Kenzo group LVMH is bought, this company owned a majority of French fashion Houses. Despite many years of his work alongside businesspersons, Kenzo did not afford to get into business but to remain in creative design; however, the House Kenzo creators minted around 200 million dollars a year. In the year 2002, Kenzo returned to Japan after signing a contract with LVMH who was his former bosses. However, until this time of construct, Kenzo had not decided to go back into designing of clothes. Moreover, Kenzo and LVMH did not decide to work on clothes or creating new houses. Currently, Kenzo is 63 years of age and still has a bright life and career of him. References Craik, J. (2008). Fashion: The key concepts. Oxford [u.a.: Berg. Houghton Mifflin Company. (2003). The Houghton Mifflin dictionary of biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Sainderichin, G. (1999). Kenzo. New York: Universe. The Riverside dictionary of biography. (2005). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Read More