Kenzo SS23 was like a runway version of The Breakfast Club
By Bailey Slater | Fashion | 27 June 2022

An array of colourful American sports flags, pennants if you’re that way inclined, usually hanging from college gym walls or flying in the crowd on your home turf were our first introduction to Nigo’s second menswear collection at Kenzo. It’s like they say: go big, or go home.

The show riffed on an array of scholarly archetypes, sending us back to school days without the chaos of claiming your table at lunchtime. Nigo manifested an air of tradition in finely cut sailor suits paired with lopsided berets, a studious look that’s way too cool to be nerdy. The stoner crew, who might miss every lecture but will be damned if they don’t claim the best sofa at a house party, were the next lot to wonder through the designer’s slouchy web. Their bohemian fits mixing slouchy waistcoats with jutting waists – the first of many 70s-beckoning silhouettes – and wave-printed suits with colourful baker boy caps, set at angles that seemed to totally defy the laws of gravity. 

While his mad-hatter escapades continued with velvety pork pie hats and fluffy bowlers, Nigo’s favoured floral motifs peppered the mix on buttercup yellow twinsets, blush-red broaches and even belt buckles. These subtle details cross-pollinated the histories of kimono wrap jackets and bright varsity bombers with striking effects. What’s also apparent is a keen sense of structure, the kind of precise tailoring that meticulously controls the slack movements of dark denim jeans, or balloons patchwork sweaters and their bell-sleeves into a cloud of knitted splendour. Even the severely cut bangs and (equally sharp) neckties of his models perfectly fitted the bill, not that we’re surprised, they don’t call him the Godfather of streetwear for nothing you know.

GALLERYCatwalk images from Kenzo SPRING-SUMMER-2023





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