In November 2016 Paula Varjack found herself queuing at 4am outside a branch of H&M in east London to be the first in line to buy exclusive designs from Kenzo’s new collaboration with the Swedish fast fashion multinational. Five hours later she and twenty others were given ten minutes to shop a cordoned off section of the store. After paying at a till staffed by cheering applauding sales assistants, she emerged carrying the largest shopping bag she had ever carried. What is it about Kenzo?
In a world where you are who you wear, The Cult of K*NZO is an original, visually spectacular, endearing and accessible examination of consumer culture. It is also a very funny take on class, race, the ways we interact with the world, and the ways in which the world interacts with us. Whether you’re a dedicated fashion aficionado or couldn’t give a damn about designer labels, there’s plenty to enjoy in this show.
The Cult of K*NZO interweaves the stories of one woman’s lifelong desire for luxury and the young Kenzo Takada’s dream of becoming a fashion designer. Kenzo was one of the first men to study at fashion school in Japan and one of the first Japanese designers to come to train and design in the West. Like the “she” of the story, he was deeply drawn to high fashion.
‘Most of my clothes are carefully selected from eBay or charity shops’, said Paula ‘but a couple of winters ago I got up in the middle of the night so that I could be amongst the first to buy from H&M’s new Kenzo collaboration. I spent as much in 10 minutes as I usually do in a year! What was it about these clothes and this brand that made me act so out of character? I couldn’t work it out and felt compelled to explore it further; to make a show looking at what drives people to want things that are exclusive, that not everyone can have, and the stories we tell by what we wear’.
‘Fashion is an artform everyone is forced to engage with. Whatever we wear expresses something, even if it’s that you don’t want to be seen to show an interest in fashion’.
You mightalso like
Incorporating storytelling, videography, sound design and choreography the show looks at how high end designer brands create desire, the tension between inclusion and exclusion, and the mysterious allure of high end. Why do we want the things that we want? What’s in a brand?
The Cult of K*NZO tours venues around England from February to May 2019, opening at Camden People’s Theatre just before London Fashion Week, with a further London show at Battersea Arts Centre.
