Kenzo create a surreal interactive online gallery to showcase their new collection

Never a brand to risk complacency, Kenzo are pushing the boat out yet again this season to scale the parameters of the online store. They’ve created an elaborate narrative to accompany the online shopping destination of their pre-autumn 2014 collection, cooking up a fictional exhibition of which all but one of the featured artworks is stolen by the show’s star the night before it opens. In this story the exhibition opens anyhow, and the works are replaced with film footage of the thieves – Sudanese-American model Grace Bol and her accomplice – at work, with a sack full of their booty and all.

They enlisted Partel Oliva to direct the sultry, sinister but ever artful films, while the web and 3D mastery was the work of designer Kim Boutin and David Broner. Sound tricky? It is a bit, and the interactive website, while snazzy and undoubtedly innovative, has the potential to falter at an impatient hand or a slow connection. Still, you can only admire the extent of the brand’s concept and the thoroughness with which the idea has been executed, aligning a complex narrative, web design and fashion film to create something utterly new. If one day all exhibitions are to be delivered in website form, then you know where their nod of gratitude will be directed.