Why Kenzo Featured Live Nude Sculptures at Its Spring 2017 Runway Show

"Bodies are historical, families evolve, friends adapt, lovers mutate."

Often the "Instagram moment" in a fashion show comes at the end: All the models pause in some particular formation and everyone snaps away. But at Kenzo's spring/summer 2017, shown at the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, everyone lifted their phones the second they entered the show space.

That's because Kenzo designers Carol Lim and Humberto Leon had enlisted real people to pose as sculptures amongst the actual sculptures in the museum hallway that served as the runway. These people—dancers, performers, comedians, aerialists, and one midwife (!) who ranged in age from 20 to 58—were painted white-ish or green-ish to look like plaster and held their poses with impressive stillness for the duration of the show. But! They were very real and very naked.

In a statement, the brand explained, "KENZO wanted to celebrate the beauty of bodies and their innate power through feats of stillness and specific alterations to the human form...Thinking back to Studio 54 and Le Palace, places were people came together as one, the KENZO team found at Cité de l'Architecture a huge gallery featuring full-scale, monumental reproductions of French sculptural art from the Middle Age to the XIXth century. So the living sculptures were inserted into the museum, as a manner of update: bodies are historical, families evolve, friends adapt, lovers mutate."Indeed it was quite powerful to see these very real bodies against the rendered-in-marble ones. It was an affirming statement about inclusive beauty standards and sent a sly message about body positivity...even if the runway models were all still the standard size 0s and 2s.