The New KENZO Campaign Is A Surreal Original Film By Natasha Lyonne of ‘OITNB’
Starring Maya Rudolph and Greta Lee.
Okay guys, stop everything you're doing and watch this video – seriously. The 12-minute-long KENZO film, entitled Cabiria, Charity, Chastity, is a fashion campaign to remember; more than just a fashion film, it's a gorgeous short movie with substance that's guaranteed to leave you hankering after more.
“We don't like to call them fashion films,” KENZO creative director Carol Lim says. “I think there is a pretty free way that people will interpret the story and then take it. The clothes are almost secondary in many ways because it needs to fit with the characters.”
The short was written and directed by Orange is the New Black actress Natasha Lyonne, marking her directorial debut, and features a star-studded cast including Maya Rudolph as the main character, and appearances from Fred Amisen, Greta Lee, Macaulay Culkin, Matt Lucas and Leslie Odom Jr. The film follows Rudolph's lovable character on her “surreal journey through a parallel plane, as she discovers that in order to face her future, she must first reconcile with her Vaudevillian past.”
There's a beautiful, and extremely aesthetically pleasing, backstage feel to the whole film which lets all of the characters – and of course key pieces from KENZO's 2017 fall/winter collection – truly shine in their idiosyncrasy. Rudolph's performance is spellbinding, even creating her own language (“a version of gibberish,” according to Lyonne) that she delivers with total ease.
Cabiria, Charity, Chastity is KENZO's fifth film under the brand's creative directors Carol Lim and Humberto Leon, the last of which, My Mutant Brain directed by Spike Jonze, won a Grand Prix at Cannes this summer – but we definitely think this is the best so far.
Press play on the short film above and prepare to spend the next 12 minutes of your life in a magical new realm.