Kenzo Spring 2024 Ad Campaign

Review of Kenzo Spring 2024 Ad Campaign by Photographer Keizo Kitajima and Film Director Frank Lebon

Kenzo continues its vivid cross-cultural dialogue with its energetic Spring 2024 campaign. The campaign was lensed by photographer Keizo Kitajima with a film directed by Frank Lebon.

The imagery continues the visual and narrative thread established in the brand’s Fall 2023 campaign, which also was photographed by Kitajima with a dynamic film for Lebon. While that campaign explored the cultural roots of Kenzo’s eponymous founder and its current creative director by exploring the vibrant subcultures of their shared home country of Japan, this sequel brings things full circle with its setting of the brand’s home city: Paris.

Kitajima brings his signature sensibility for dynamic street photography to capturing the campaign’s cool young cast across the city of lights. The backdrops range from iconic architectural monuments and ornate Hausmannian apartments to more grounded and everyday settings like street corners and metro underpasses.

The spirit of youthful urban energy comes fully to life in Lebon’s accompanying short film. An abstractly looping electronic soundtrack blossoms as the characters explore the city streets and engage in playful art performance, drawing the things that for them are most emblematic of Paris. Snippets from interviews are woven into the soundtrack, forming a kind of emotional tapestry that offers overlapping windows into the inner lives of these creative personae.

As Nigo’s vision for Kenzo is a carefully considered synthesis of Japanese design tradition and contemporary French style, it’s a smart approach that each country should form the rich backdrop of a campaign – but these dual settings take on greater meaning in conversation with one another, as this second chapter shows. Nigo is really hitting his stride with his direction at Kenzo, and this campaign is a fittingly celebratory homecoming.