Carol Lim: I think we discovered Kenzo in college, as we were collecting vintage, and we were always amazed by silhouettes and color and print. As we researched then understood the importance of his role in Parisian fashion. It makes sense to us; so we've been super, super excited to learn more and more about the collections, him, his journey and all of it. It was everything that we thought it would be as we were discovering the clothing and even more.

Humberto Leon: We did a bunch of things, I mean when we first joined the brand there the runway was couture and the commercial part was casual and we kinda decided to get rid of those categories and just make one collection that was for everybody. So I think that in itself changed the attitude of the brand. I think that was really important. And then all our advertising, all our branding efforts just brought a different tone to how we approach the brand.

Humberto Leon: I think we've brought energy to the brand, we brought fun, excitement.
Carol Lim: Inclusiveness.
Humberto Leon: Not taking the brand seriously, globally. All these things. I mean when we took the brand, I would say over 50% of it was in France. Now it's a global brand. 

Humberto Leon: This shop is an interesting lay out. It's kind of a weird layout: one of the things that we decided to do was to simplify the concept because in many ways you're coming to these weird little rooms. We didn't want to overwhelm the clothing. And we always have ideas that we want the clothing to speak for itself. So we work with this architect Rafael de Cárdenas. They came up with all this great new fixtures for us that would add a modular whimsical fixturing to the place.

Carol Lim: I think that retail and physical stores are not gonna go away. I think there is almost a return to coming into a store, feeling the product and engaging with the staff. I mean that's super important, so I think we're proud to have a lot of retail stores, and continue to grow. This is kind of a neutral concept and we're excited cause we're really gonna focus on retail in the coming years.

Carol Lim: They don't combine but the approach is exactly the same. We approach the creative process in a similar way, but there are different brands with distinct identities and stories. So I think we share similarities in how we design and approach all the elements – how we develop the store. Because at Opening Ceremony we do everything.

Humberto Leon: Yeah. I don't know avantgarde, but we definitely try to bring different things to Kenzo, and we definitely experiment a lot, with the collection, with the films. There is a lot of experimentation, which I guess is the definition of avantgarde.

Humberto Leon: For sure, I mean we definitely try to bring in as much culture as we can to Kenzo. In every aspect, whether it's working with artists, or an organization. Every show that we have we work with a specific musician that does a soundtrack for our shows, everyone from Blood Orange to M.I.A to the XX. So we definitely find a way to merge culture into the brand, which I think it's important. 

Carol Lim: The inspiration started around a commentary on what we are thinking about and what's important to us.
Humberto Leon: So there are a lot of environmental issues that we brought into the collection. Thinking about this idea of Arctic surfing, and asking the question is there where we are heading as humans? Are we gonna start surfing in the snow? That was almost like a rhetorical question.
Carol Lim: The fact that a lot of things that would be normal in the world where we grew up have now flipped on its head. I think of the way we treat the Earth and keep of thinking it's gonna be around for ever and that it's disposable. I mean, in New York it's been extremely warm, and floods in California – all this is directly related.
Humberto Leon: So we presented the collection as a satire, and that's how we started the conversation. We ended up working with two big environmental organizations – Ideas for Us and Earth Guardians – helping them to support some of their causes. The collection was about that, we decided to act upon it as a company and help these organizations.