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Last season, Carol Lim and Humberto Leon based their collection on the idea of the world within a jungle. For their autumn/winter 13 collection, which showed at Pitti last night, the Kenzo designers delved into a rather more complex atmosphere, namely that of the sky and all its connotations. Sky and cloud prints on voluminous jackets cemented a celestial theme, which prevented the collection from looking like a Magritte parody and made it into something much more epic. Rather than surrealism, it was almost psychedelic but in a tranquil way, which showed that Lim and Leon’s talents go far beyond logo jumpers and statement caps. “Anything can happen up in the sky, and I think Carol and I wanted to dream a little bit this season and reference the idea of, are there gods living up there? Are there animals that protect these gods? And what happens from day to night? These were all the conversations we had in order to bring together the collection,” Humberto told i-D after the show. In a clever move, the designers didn’t choose one of Florence’s countless churches or palazzos with heavenly ceilings, but the huge market space of the Mercado Centrale, which brought the divinity down to earth and reinforced new-era Kenzo’s position as a brand for the people.
Text: Anders Christian Madsen
