Felipe Oliveira Baptista is Kenzo's Force of Nature
Newly minted artistic director Felipe Oliveira Baptista returns to the fundamentals of the brand with architectural lines and inclusive pieces that play with print with vibrant freedom.
Photography Noel Manalili
It is said that in the early ‘60s, when Kenzo Takada left his native Japan and, after six months of travel, arrived in Paris, the first thing that he did was dance the night away. It was a moment of endless possibilities for the young designer. Even though he did not speak French—which led him to work on the wrong season for his debut fashion show—he knew an even more universal language: that of color. And so he combined his poetic sensibility with the rigor of Western cuts, articulating the dialect of nature and the vocabulary of flowers. It was a period of lightness.
Even if today’s times are more pragmatic and his arrival within the brand is more thoughtful, 45-year-old Portuguese designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista—appointed by LVMH in the summer of 2019 as the artistic director of men’s and women’s collections at Kenzo—is one of the most anticipated designers of the season. His first collection, inspired by travel, demonstrated Baptista’s mastery of cut—the technical side of design he loves so much—and exhibited an elegant poetry, while its easy-to-wear and joyful side was carried by the brand’s prints. The fashion house brought back Kenzo’s archives, held by collector Olivier Châtenet, with Baptista exploring and reviving the brand’s heritage—particularly honing in on its ’70s collections.
Now, as the designer presents his second collection, the world is more complex. We are lost in a global health crisis. “I put together this collection during the first lockdown; it’s a combination of worry and joy, with a willingness to be optimistic about getting through. I wanted to highlight this reconciliation between man and nature with this idea of adjusting the ecosystem,” Baptista explains. The collection is a call to the beauty of the outdoors, flower gardens contrasted by the long protective veils on beekeepers’ hats, a cocooning fashion for nomads in need of travel. The bees, after all, are the muses of this collection: A force of nature that protects us and consumes only what it needs. Which brings us to Baptista’s attention to sustainability. “At Kenzo, we are committed to the use of 80 percent organic cotton and recyclable cashmere, nylon, and polyester. Our packaging is made from eco-friendly materials. We also have a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to support the goal of doubling the tiger population in the wild by 2022.” Yes, the famous tiger is there. This icon, so prominent in the collections of Humberto Leon and Carol Lim—former artistic directors of the house from 2011 to 2019—is still present with Baptista. This time in a more committed and artful spirit, since it is also found in the form of a print taken from the work of Lisbon-based artist Júlio Pomar.
I love architecture, image, photography…fashion is a mixture of all of these it stumbled upon me by chance.
In all of Baptista’s work we find the idea of “usefulness in connection to pleasure.” He explains: “I have always been very interested in utility. I like this pragmatic side in clothing, which we find in uniforms, where everything corresponds to a need. Fashion that is both functional and aesthetic.” This approach is evidenced by his coat/sleeping-bag inspired by the hooded clothing of women of the Azores, the archipelago where the designer is from. His clothes are therefore removable, reversible, and practical. More than a style, a signature.
Baptista also always likes to blur the lines between generations in his collections. “What better compliment than seeing people of different ages wearing the same garment.” In addition to being a designer, Baptista is a stylist and photographer. “I have always been multidisciplinary, I love architecture, image, photography...Fashion is a mixture of all of these, it stumbled upon me by chance.” This art lover was very touched by the late Christo’s final exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris in 2020. When asked about collaborations, he explains that he loves to mix his work with that of others, as he did with Kansai Yamamoto, the legendary Japanese designer (who passed away last year) known for his eccentric collaborations in the ’70s with David Bowie.
Kenzo Takada and Felipe Oliveira Baptista: two men, two styles, the same energy and the same taste for beauty and poetry. Baptista will certainly pay tribute to Takada in his next collection, the first presented since the house’s founder passed away last fall.
STYLED BY Kenzia Bengel de Vaulx
MODEL Nina Fresneau WOMEN
HAIR & MAKEUP Alix Perrot
