• By
  • Christina Passariello

Kenzo was without a doubt the best show of Saint Denis Fashion Week. It was also the only fashion house showing.

In fact, Kenzo was officially participating in Paris Fashion Week. But it held its Sunday fashion show so far out, it was in another city, Saint Denis—on the wrong side of the ring road that encircles the French capital.

The location became the butt of Paris Fashion Week jokes on Sunday. Does the TGV, France’s high-speed train network, go there, some wondered? Are there nonstop Concorde flights?

Kenzo’s organizers tried to reassure guests that it was just a hop, skip and a jump away from central Paris. “It’s borderline,” one PR representative said. “The address is listed outside but it’s not really.” The invitation helpfully indicated the closest metro stations.

But like many guests, we went by car to the Cité du Cinéma, Luc Besson’s new film studio complex in Saint Denis. The address confused our taxi driver. “It’s not in my GPS,” he said.

We wound through the suburbs on the quiet weekend morning, near the famous antique market in Saint Ouen. At one point, we ran into a street market and hung a U-turn—and so did the long line of fashion week black sedans following us.

Kenzo’s American designers choose “a venue that is a discovery for the audience” each season, according to the house’s PR team. They’re often far out, like the dojo studio on the southern border of the city a year ago. “Kenzo tends to always go for far-flung venues,” fashion blogger Bryanboy said after a particularly long journey to Saint Denis.

He had flown in earlier in the morning from the U.S. and came straight to the show after a quick detour to his hotel in central Paris. Fashion house Giorgio Armani was footing the bill for his chauffeured ride from the airport. But when Bryanboy asked the driver to take him to the Kenzo show, the driver said it was out of his area of coverage and the blogger would have to pay for the distant drop-off.

After a half-hour journey, passing car junkyards and warehouses, and following signs for an industrial zone, we landed in a long line of sedans—a sign that we had found the right place because everyone was getting dropped off. Kenzo had arranged for food trucks serving coffee and cookies. It was enough to make most guests forget how far they had come to get there—until they had to face the long ride back to Paris.

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