Carla Chahrour

The France-based fashion house Kenzo, known for its distinctive tiger logo, which was created in 1970 by the Japanese designer Kenzo Takada, launched a capsule collection on September 28 in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund’s TX2 tiger conservation goal to double the global population of wild tigers by 2022.

Designed by creative director Felipe Oliveira Baptista, who took over from Carol Lim and Humberto Leon last July, the collection consists of 18 unisex pieces, including T-shirts, hoodies, and sweatshirts in Global Organic Textile Standard-certified organic cotton (the worldwide textile-processing standard for organic fibers) printed with a re-designed version of Kenzo’s celebrated tiger print, priced between $155 and $495 with $10 from every purchase going to the WWF.

The collection will evolve with the seasons until the end of 2022 to continue driving support for the cause.

The GOTS certification ensures that each item is produced from 100 percent organic cotton that was obtained through environmentally and socially responsible manufacturing, delineated by the usage of around 62 percent less energy and  88 percent less water than regular cotton, according to the GOTS website.

“This project follows a similar one Baptista launched as the creative director of Lacoste, a collection of polos featuring endangered species in place of the brand’s signature crocodile logo. He maintained the casual-wear style in the Kenzo collection, but with an authentic vision connected to nature,”an employee at the Kenzo store in Paris said in an interview.

“Baptista is a nature lover. For him it was very important that a percentage of this collection will go towards the protection of endangered animals. The number of wild tigers had declined to  3,200, so the goal is to double their genetic growth. It is important to think about nature itself. Today at Kenzo, we use materials that are environmentally-friendly, such as organic cotton, which allows us to embrace sustainable alternatives throughout Kenzo’s offering. It is very evident that respecting the environment is one of his values that he considers very important and he tries to raise awareness of this through linking it fashion,” the Kenzo employee added.

What is TX2?

The “TX2” initiative is the global goal to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022 that was developed on November 2010, when world leaders from thirteen tiger range countries, including Bhutan, Nepal, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Russia, Bangladesh, India, Thailand and Laos met in St Petersburg, Russia for an international tiger conservation forum. With only about 3,200 wild tigers (Panthera tigris) left in the wild, down from 100,000 a century ago, pushing the species to the brink of extinction.

In 2016, the overall number of wild tigers started to tick upward, with an estimated 3,900 tigers in the wild, up by 700. While populations are stable or increasing in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Russia and China, they ramian functionally extinct in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, with Malaysia expected to follow.

Kenzo’s Tiger motif

Wild tigers have served as embodiment of the brand’s founding principles since its initiation, drawing inspiration from energy, power, nature and the dynamic “Jungle Jap” spirit, which was the theme of the first boutique that founder Takada opened in Paris in 1970. 

Inspired by Japanese wilderness,  Takada established his brand’s aesthetic based on Japanese floral prints and the jungle scenes of painter Henri Rousseau, which he merged to crystalize his brand’s unique signature. In fact, previous Kenzo designers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim  had consulted Takada’s early sketches, which included tigers on labels, before introducing the knit sweater with a tiger graphic on it for Kenzo’s autumn/winter 2012 collection. 

This collaboration forms part of a broader partnership between KENZO and WWF, which will work to not only to protect the world’s tigers but also to improve the sustainability of the fashion industry’s cotton supply chain and freshwater footprint.

As predators at the top of the food chain, tigers play a pivotal role in maintaining the health and balance of their natural ecosystems. For Kenzo, helping protect these unique animals is clearly an imperative as it upholds the brand’s founding philosophy which is “to be inspired by nature and to protect nature.”