Fashion designer Kenzo Takada dies from COVID-19 at age 81

PARIS (AP) — Kenzo Takada, the iconic Franco-Japanese fashion designer famed for his jungle-infused designs and free-spirited aesthetic that channeled global travel, has died. He was 81.

The family said in a statement to French media Sunday that Takada died from complications from COVID-19 in a hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris. A public relations officer for Kenzo's brand confirmed that Takada died, but didn't give a cause of death.

“It is with immense sadness that KENZO has learned of the passing of our founder,” the fashion house said in a statement. "For half a century, Mr. Takada has been an emblematic personality in the fashion industry — always infusing creativity and color into the world.”

Though Takada had been retired from his house since 1999 to pursue a career in art, Kenzo remains one of the most respected fixtures of the high Paris fashion. Since 1993, the brand Kenzo has been owned owned by the French luxury goods company LVMH. The current designer and artistic director, Felipe Oliveira Baptista, unveiled Kenzo’s spring-summer 2020 to fashion editors on Wednesday.

"His amazing energy, kindness, talent and smile were contagious," Oliveira Baptista said. “His kindred spirit will live forever.”

Kenzo's styles used bold color, clashing prints and were inspired by travels all over the world.

“Kenzo Takada has, from the 1970s, infused into fashion a tone of poetic lightness and sweet freedom which inspired many designers after him," said Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of LVMH.

Takada was born on Feb. 27, 1939, in Himeji, in the Hyogo Prefecture in Japan to hoteliers, but after reading his sisters’ fashion magazines his love of fashion began.

Studying at the Bunka College of Fashion in Tokyo, Kenzo Takada had a brief...