Image Released, Getty Images
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Kenzo Takada at Paris Fashion Week in February this year
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The Japanese designer, Kenzo Takada, founder of the Kenzo fashion brand, has died after being infected with the Coronavirus, according to a statement by a company spokesperson, according to French media.
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Takada died in the American Hospital in Paris at the age of 81, according to the statement.
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Known for his colorful and floral prints, Takada was the first Japanese designer to gain fame in the Paris fashion scene.
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Takada settled in France in the 1960s and spent the rest of his career there.
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His spokesman said the Japanese designer, “who has created nearly 8,000 designs, has never ceased celebrating fashion and the art of living.”
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Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo praised Takada in a tweet, saying, “A designer with great talent has given color and lighting their place in fashion. Paris is now in mourning for one of her sons.”
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“I was a fan of the brand in the 1970s when he created it. I think he was a great designer,” fashion news site WWD.com quoted Sydney Toledano, chief executive of LVMH, the owner of Kenzo, as saying.
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Image Released, Getty Images
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Kenzo Takada at the Fall-Winter 1983-1984 Fashion Show in Paris
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Born in 1939 near the Japanese city of Osaka, Kenzo Takada arrived in France in 1965 by boat and settled in Paris.
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He founded the internationally known brand by his first name in the 1970s. He launched a men’s clothing line in 1983, and later in the 1980’s, other sports-casual-clothing lines, Kenzo Jeans and Kenzo Jungle.
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Kenzo sold his clothing brand to luxury clothing group LVMH in 1993 and retired from the fashion world six years later.
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