For Kenzo’s FW24 co-ed collection, Creative Director Nigo wanted to create a wardrobe that felt like the perfect blend of Eastern and Western styles. It’s something that the house has always tried to do (being a Japanese house in Paris, this blending often happens unconsciously), but never has it been so obviously the raison d’être of a collection.

Taking his cue from George Lucas, who took cues from the classic samurai films of Akira Kurasawa to create his Star Wars universe, the collection felt like a distinctly sci-fi take on traditional Japanese codes. A kimono coat was imbued with the lines of a warrior cape, a weave inspired by the wood print of a Japanese hakeshibaten fireman’s jacket evoked an ancient-future graphic and plissé dresses draped like the cloak of a space fiction heroine.

Flight jackets, cargo suits and shearling jackets, those symbols of Western aviator style, were refracted through a Japanese lens with long judo belts. Dresses and suits were covered in a karakusa pattern (which traditionally appears on Japanese furoshiki wrapping cloth) and lattice patterns that were rendered in jacquard.

On foot, a new sneaker that harked back to 90s skater culture made its debut, constructed with a mesh-wrapped midsole and appearing in leather, suede and neoprene. In hand there were furoshiki bags, which are a classic Japanese style where a single piece of fabric is just wrapped around whatever you want to carry and knotted, but here imbued with the codes of the house and rendered in calf leather and textured suede.