backstage at kenzo | paris fashion week men’s ss19

Paris’ Spring/Summer 2019 edition of the men’s shows came to a close with Kenzo’s now ritualistic event — a firm favourite in ten calendar — that promised to allow us to come together to celebrate unity and solidarity in a collection centred around peace. It’s certainly not the first that Kenzo has chosen to comment political and social realities — bringing a positive and empowering alternative to a status quo marred with conflict and crisis. Floating gardens greeted guests as they entered, casting a poetic, oneiric vision over the cool, shadowy dreamscape. Humberto Leon and Carol Lim were setting their scene for their harbour of tranquillity.

The clothes, in true Kenzo style, were a colourful, bold collage of textures and textiles — boyish figures floated in oversized workwear, reinvented with a pop palette of orange, blue, green. The polka dots, nylons and florals constituted a musical composition, striking a visual chord in the multiplicity of colours, themes, patterns. 

‘Harmony’ was a keyword that encapsulated the two collections — womenswear and menswear — and to the tunes of Chicago band the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, the playful side of fashion unravelled as a truly promising future, one where optimism can be a constructive way forward. We couldn’t think of a better note to end the menswear season on.