KENZO’S autumn-winter 2019 advertising campaign is an off-the-wall journey of discovery and exploration. The French fashion house founded by Japanese designer Kenzo Takada has once again collaborated with the storied pop photographer David LaChapelle. And the result of their second creative partnership looks like a joyful series of wanderlust-inciting postcards.
The campaign, which was shot in Paris, features an interesting mix of diverse actors and talents such as Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer and models Lindsey Wixon and Kiko Arai. Geron Nord and Jabali Sandiford are also spotted taking the road less travelled. The styling is by Anna Trevelyan, and the pieces in the campaign feature bold prints and KENZO’s signature riot of texture and colour.
The KENZO campaign, which seems to blur the lines between high art, luxury advertising and the desire for travel, asks us to look more carefully before drawing conclusions. At first glance, the unconventional, densely layered images echo the important cross-cultural conversations that have been imprinted into the brand’s roots since its foundation. Yet in classic LaChapelle form, there is more to these photos than what meets the eye. One-of-a-kind works of “collage art”, the dual images feature original fashion photography by the American, superimposed over his rarely seen personal archive of vintage travel slides. LaChapelle, who is known for his mastery of colour, unique composition and imaginative narratives and is one of the most published photographers in the world, has sourced the slides for decades from his globetrotting adventures.
