In the fashion world, one of the most recent trends has been designer-retailer partnerships: The Lily for Target line sold out in a matter of hours, the fantastic Crocs and Christopher Kane partnership during this year’s fashion week took the world and Internet by storm (and if you’d like to know more on that, check out my article about it!), and now the newest acclaimed partnership, Kenzo x H&M plan on doing the same thing.
H&M is one of the largest apparel companies in the entire world, specializing in fast fashion for the trendy, ever-moving young population. H&M is regarded as leader in the fashion world for providing new and popular items at the highest demand, and thriving while doing so. Kenzo, a young designer from Paris, specializes in bright, over-the-top, eclectic designs, commonly with bright floral or animal printed patterns.
The looks created for the collaboration line are just that as well, with blindingly bright cropped kimonos and loud zebra printed leggings. These pieces definitely aren’t for the less daring of the fashion world, as they require their own set of confidence and personality to be styled correctly.
Upon first glance at the line, I, like most people, was severely turned off by the impracticality and the almost obnoxious quality of the pieces. When would there be any possible event to wear six-inch pink tiger printed boots? Who would ever be able to pull off a neon green floral jumpsuit? It’s hard to appreciate a collection when it’s hard to imagine how to style it, let alone hard to determine what the pieces are in the first place.
I definitely still agree with this, and definitely won’t be rocking the collection myself any time soon, but I now rather enjoy the collection. While it may be slightly tacky and a little loud for many people’s tastes, you have to respect the creativity and originality of the line. Anyone who can design or even wear a fashion line or even a piece from it with that amount of confidence and fierceness should be respected (Maybe we’re all a little jealous we can’t rock a multi-peplumed floral print leather jacket, heck, I know I am).
So even though I won’t be rocking the H&MxKenzo collection anytime soon, I definitely have developed a newfound appreciation for it, and look forward to seeing celebrities (or some of my daring friends and classmates) styling the pieces soon.
