Kenzo spirits Paris on jungle safari

PARIS - Kenzo whisked Paris to the jungles of Southeast Asia on Saturday with a retro-tinted men's look of safari suits and animal prints cut out for the urban adventurer.

Design duo Humberto Leon and Carol Lim took their cue from the 1970s jungle period of the house's Japanese founder Kenzo Takada, travelling to Thailand on a sensory immersion trip to find their own modern take on the theme.

Kenzo SS 2013 / Photo: Pixel Formula

Tiger stripes and Asian clouded leopard prints -- blurred or miniaturised -- found their way onto ultra-fine layered shirts, bermuda pants and raincoats, worn over patent loafers or chunky patent sandals with socks.

"When we went to Thailand, on weekends we saw that all the village people would dress to the nines," Leon told reporters after the show.

"We like to play with this idea of sportswear meets tailored pieces," said the designer, also known as the co-founder with Lim of the New York fashion complex Opening Ceremony. "We touched upon this idea of almost Sunday best."

As a venue the duo picked a vast dojo in the south of Paris, sending a team of impeccably-dressed athletes somersaulting perilously down from the higher seats onto the stage by way of introduction.

When the models stepped onto the arena of thickly piled red and yellow gym mats, it was to a fast, heady drumbeat and the clicks and whirrs of a jungle canopy soundtrack.

Jungle attire was suggested in the layered looks, and bermuda pants cut wide to let in the breeze, in khaki or mustard, and double-billed visor caps in a tiny leopard-print of green, blue and red.

Boxy rust-coloured pants with a starchy pleat suggested the wraparound trousers worn in rural south Asia.

And a mustard yellow perfecto jacket, with matching shorts, was layered over a green sweater and leopard-collar shirt -- its wearer fit for a cameo in a Bruce Lee martial arts movie.