Kenzo Ads That Make You Look Twice by Eric Wilson
THERE’S SOMETHING FUNNY about those Kenzo advertisements.
First came some striking images created by the photographer Jean-Paul  Goude for Kenzo’s “X Campaign,” in which two models, one upright and the  other upside down, both with their legs spread wide apart, were  intertwined to form an X. Never mind that the position was physically  unattainable. It looked cool.
Things are stranger still in a fall campaign that the Kenzo designers  Carol Lim and Humberto Leon are introducing Thursday in collaboration  with Toilet Paper, the cheeky arts publication created by Maurizio  Cattelan and the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. Mr. Cattelan and Mr.  Ferrari have been creating some wild visual projects, like a billboard  that appeared next to the High Line showing disembodied fingers, and  sweatshirts sold at Colette featuring a frog in a hamburger bun.
The Kenzo ads should also make you look twice. In one image, the actress  Rinko Kikuchi and the model Sean O’Pry are pinned to a specimen board  with a variety of insects. In another, a kitten peeks out of a polished  dress shoe.
“We wanted weird and cool,” said Mr. Leon, who, with Ms. Lim, has  brought a street-smart, culture-sponging edge to Kenzo over the last two  years. “A lot of people discover a brand by flipping through a  magazine, so I want to give Kenzo a voice that is different from  everything else.”
This may explain why, in place of one model’s left foot, we see her hand.