PARIS — It took nearly 20 years for Kenzo Takada to complete his first book.
The fashion designer was approached by author Kazuko Masui moments after he left his namesake brand in 1999. At the time, Masui had a plan to make a book of Takada’s drawings, more than 5,000 of them. It since blossomed into a full-fledged biography, opening with the letters a young Takada wrote to his mother upon first arriving in Paris in 1965 and ending with dozens of pages dedicated to his final show at the fashion brand, held at the Zénith concert hall in 1999. Around 400 drawings still made the cut.
Born in 1939, Takada studied at Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo before setting off to Paris to pursue his career. After a couple of years working for a design agency and selling drawings of his designs, including to the house of Louis Féraud, Takada opened his first shop in March 1970, named Jungle Jap.
It was an immediate hit, with Takada’s colorful cotton designs and Japanese kimonos gathering press attention. The brand officially launched as Kenzo in 1976 when it inaugurated its flagship on the Place des Victoires in the center of Paris. Takada quickly became
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