Kenzo and H&M debut new visuals by Jean Paul Goude

Iconic French photographer Jean-Paul Goude – best known for his work with Grace Jones and the original editorial that inspired Kim Kardashian’s now-infamous ‘Break the Internet’ cover for Paper magazine – has lent his eye-catching image-making ability to H&M’s hotly anticipated collaboration with Kenzo. 

Adding to the brand’s refreshing history of considering fashion in relation to the world at large (the house’s latest pioneering fashion film ‘The Realest Real’ is a commentary on social media), Goude’s subjects are not just the conventional fashion campaign choice as the casting of supermodel icon Iman would first have you believe.

“I am the face of a refugee,” she asserts instead, joining Chance the Rapper and subversive female Vietnamese rapper Suboi as not just stars, but global ambassadors whose activism, as much as their respective successes in fashion, music and the arts, make them ideal Kenzo representatives.

Kenzo creative directors Carol Lim and Humberto Leon showed their preference for more socially-minded muses earlier this month at Opening Ceremony’s New York Fashion Week show. The event saw Whoopi Goldberg and Rowan Blanchard, along with Alia Shawkat, Aubrey Plaza, Natasha Lyonne, Rashida Jones, engage in a ‘Pageant of the People’ and encouraged people to vote in the upcoming US Presidential Election.

Coming together to create a maelstrom of colour and exuberance, this campaign is Kenzo’s vision of the future where fashion fantasy might be able to do something for social realities for once. In a sound bite that might as well be the campaign tagline, Suboi demonstrates her dual flair for social commentary and lyrical flow: “The young generation is coming up, and they’re good, they’re talented and they’re making the future.”