KENZO FALL-WINTER 2023 CAMPAIGN BY NIGO

EAST MEETS WEST: a metropolitan dialogue between tradition and the underground. For the KENZO Fall-Winter 2023 Campaign, Artistic Director Nigo invites the KENZO community into his personal universe in a portrayal of the Japan that shaped him. The campaign celebrates the cross-cultural conversation at the heart of the Maison in a multi-faceted juxtaposition between Kyoto and Osaka. It captures an East-meets-West ensemble cast in a series of locations reflective of the diverse identities of the two cities: the melting pot of Osaka, with its vivid street culture and underground youth energy; and the historical surroundings of Kyoto, with its heritage spirit and hidden youth-driven music scene. Captured in on-location imagery by Keizo Kitajima and in moving imagery by Frank Lebon, the campaign reflects the cosmopolitanism at the centre of Nigo’s practice at KENZO within the contrasts of his native Japan. The meeting between Osaka and Kyoto is founded in the genre-spanning premise of the Fall-Winter 2023 Collection. A wardrobe composed across cultures, eras and styles, it is an interaction between the streets of Japan, America and England mirrored in the memory of the youth-quake of the Swinging Sixties. In the campaign, the framework expands into a study of the present-day youth scenes of the two Japanese cities. It manifests in a portrayal of the self-expression of contemporary youth in Japan and beyond: a stylistic suspension between traditional and modern dress constructio