Disaffected generation

Cult Californian director Gregg Araki makes an excellently pulp film for Kenzo
By Alex James Taylor | Fashion | 6 July 2015

Top image: Still, ‘Here Now’ Gregg Araki for Kenzo 2015

Kenzo’s FW15 campaign video Here Now sees them team up with acclaimed cult director Gregg Araki.

Starring young up-and-coming actors Avan Jogia, Grace Victoria Cox, Jake Weary and Jacob Arist the narrative follows two couples, one in deep passion, the other not so much. There’re plenty of Araki sensibilities within the grunge aesthetic: teenage angst; intense sexuality; a nun (of course) and the obligatory Shoegaze soundtrack (Slowdive’s When the Sun Hits).

Shot in the same style and frame-of-mind as Araki’s iconic Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy – made up of Totally Fucked up (1994), The Doom Generation (1995) and Nowhere (1997), Here Now‘s pulp visuals prove an apt setting for Kenzo’s psychedelic FW15 collection.

GALLERY

Considering Kenzo creative directors Humberto Leon and Carol Lim grew up in Southern California, this collaboration falls perfectly in tune with their passion for US subcultures, from East Coast (today they split their time between New York and Paris) to West. Araki is a vanguard of the New Queer Cinema scene, his film Kaboom (2010) was the first ever winner of the Cannes Film Festival Queer Palm, taken home in 2010.

“We have been huge fans of Gregg since our teens. For us, he’s definitely a director of our generation. We’re interested in instilling culture, whether it is subculture or pop culture into all of our projects, especially at KENZO,” said Humberto Leon of the film.

Watch Here Now below.


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