Kenzo Takada the Japanese Fashion Designer, Best Known for His Eponymous Label Kenzo, Puts His Success Down to Happenstance – but He’S Being Modest
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my last meal/paris Kenzo Takada The Japanese fashion designer, best known for his eponymous label Kenzo, puts his success down to happenstance – but he’s being modest. Instead he should claim innovation and a sense of fun as the elements that have made him a Paris icon in his own right. By Sonia Zhuravlyova Photography Arnaud Pyvka “I grew up after the Second World War in Profile: I arrived at Gare de Lyon on 1 January in the town of Himeji. I was always drawn to Kenzo Takada was born in 1939, 1965. It was completely empty and dark; fashion. I would look at my mother, who studied and worked in fashion in it was so disappointing. I had imagined Tokyo, then left for Paris in 1964. wore kimonos; they would take a lot of In 1970 he opened his own shop, Paris like you saw in the movies. But then time to put on in the mornings with the Jungle Jap, designing four sell-out I saw Notre Dame and I knew that this different fabrics and layers. collections in just 12 months. was Paris. I found a room in Clichy for I wanted to go to the Bunka fashion Takada renamed the company nine francs per day. I didn’t have much school in Tokyo but my parents didn’t Kenzo in 1984 and in 1993 sold it money. I bought a small gas cooker and want this for me. A man was not sup- to the lVmH group, but stayed on made myself rice, salad – very simple until 1999. He received the Legion posed to study fashion at the time – this d’honneur in 2016. “Paris gave me things. I would write to my mother was 1955. To pay for my studies I spent the freedom to create,” he has said. and the letters would take a month to my summer holidays working as a tofu “I came for six months and stayed reach Japan. delivery boy and painting houses. more than 50 years.” I went to the Alliance Française to My mother would cook learn French in the morn- Japanese curry but it was dif- ings and in the afternoons ficult after the war – even rice I’d walk around. There was a was only for special occasions. shop called Louis Féraud that We would usually eat wheat I liked very much. I drew some porridge. The first time I tried sketches and showed them to chocolate and chewing gum Féraud’s wife, who bought was when I was eight years old; five. It was my first success – I it was given to us by American couldn’t believe it. It changed soldiers. My father owned a my life. At that time in Paris, traditional teahouse – there fashion was haute couture; were geishas there and they design was very structured wore kimonos too. and the clothes fitted. There I remember watching an were not so many patterns and American movie – Little Women colours. I followed that trend – at the end of the 1950s. I saw a different and respected the French code but I also life: a European bed and not a tatami mat. Venue: tried to add a Japanese touch, a bit of fun It triggered something. I wanted to go to Paris’s Le Voltaire has been serving and lightness. Paris because it was the centre of luxury traditional French dishes to an arty My friends in Tokyo opened their clientele since the end of the 19th and fashion. In 1964 my apartment build- century. With magnificent views own shop so I thought I should do the ing was due to be demolished to make over the Seine and the Louvre, the same. I rented a boutique to launch my way for the Olympic Games so my land- intimate bistro excels at staples brand, Jungle Jap, in Galerie Vivienne in lord gave me a year’s rent as compensa- such as foie gras, sole meunière and the 2nd arrondissement. I painted the me. I’d go to New York to go out; we had a his own restaurant almost 10 years ago, tion. I used this money to get to Paris. I steak tartare. The attentive waiters walls and worked on the clothes. I organ- show in Studio 54. The Palace opened in “At the time in and I go there often. And, of course, I love went by boat, the Cambodia, stopping off make sure diners feel at home and ised a very small fashion show – and one Paris at the end of the 1970s – everybody Le Voltaire. I love its history, its ambience. greet regulars like old friends. Paris, design was in Hong Kong – where I ate fantastically of my dresses made it onto the cover from the worlds of fashion and the movies I’ve been coming here since the late 1970s restaurantlevoltaire.com very structured. good Chinese food – Saigon, Singapore, of Elle. It was a very simple pink-and- went there. and I always bump into old friends. I eat Colombo, Djibouti and Alexandria. And To eat: turquoise chemise dress with a traditional When I was younger I liked to cook I respected here twice a month at least. I always have then on to Barcelona and Marseille – all Crab salad Japanese pattern. and host dinner parties at my place in that but I also the same meal: crab salad and the beef. in a month. It was a huge culture shock I was always very influenced by travel, Bastille. But my partner got sick and I lost I’ve had a long career but now, look- Fillet of beef tried to add a because I had never left Japan before. nature and, of course, Japan. When I lived the will to cook complicated meals. I still Japanese touch, ing back, I think my life is due to chance. Everywhere we stopped, I saw that people Strawberry-and-pear sorbet there I preferred European style but when like to make simple things: rice, vegeta- I arrived in Paris at just the right time. If had their own style, which is so different I moved to Paris I started to be really bles and miso soup. Japanese food always a bit of fun and I had come two years earlier, or two years from today: from Shanghai to New York, To drink: interested in Japan and its heritage. And I reminds me of my childhood. I had a lightness” later, it might not have happened in the everyone now dresses the same. Château Margaux, 2013 love parties – the 1970s were big years for chef, Toyomitsu Nakayama, who opened same way.” — (m) 228 — monocle — no128 no128 — monocle — 229.