Heaven by Marc Jacobs’ “Trustworthy” New Zine Captures Kiko Mizuhara in Tokyo

Heaven by Marc Jacobs isn’t your typical luxurious trend label. Launched in 2020 because the collaborative brainchild of Jacobs and Brooklyn-based designer Ava Nirui, Heaven’s nostalgic, grunge-inflected clothes and niknaks struck a chord with a youthful technology of trend lovers – distilling the youthful angst of a technology that values picture and a way of group. Now, for a brand new zine, the label steps into the world of Japanese mannequin, actress and muse Kiko Mizuhara, enlisting photographer Alexandra Leese to seize the genuine, uncliched character of certainly one of at the moment’s most famous and necessary fashions. “It felt easy working along with her,” says Leese. “I wished to get to know the actual Kiko.”

Alexandra Leese’s work oozes a rawness scarcely present in at the moment’s age of hyper-refined, composed trend imagery. Whereas her apply centres round documentary-style images, the sensitivity and the freewheeling emotion that emanates from the topics she lenses are testomony to a photographer with a singular curiosity and empathy. 

Leese, who’s of twin British and Chinese language heritage, spent the primary 11 years of her life in Hong Kong. Her 2018 zine Hong Kong Boys introduced her again to the area, and aimed to problem strict stereotypes surrounding Asian males’s masculinity, presenting them for who they’re, not who the West culturally and collectively think about them to be. Extra not too long ago throughout lockdown, Leese shot and introduced a delicate zine which featured ladies from world wide baring all of it from the consolation of their properties – the idea of the sequence was easy, however in its delicate sense of empowerment, made sense within the Alexandra Leese universe. 

Now for Leese’s newest mission with Heaven by Marc Jacobs, titled Kiko in Heaven, she journeys to Kiko Mizuhara’s residence metropolis of Tokyo to seize a “snippet of [Kiko Mizuhara’s] on a regular basis life, and an perception into her favorite locations.” Sporting Heaven by Marc Jacobs – or typically nothing in any respect – Leese’s visuals, rooted in an ongoing seek for pure identification, provide the chance “to expertise a bit slice of Kiko’s heaven.” Right here, Alexandra Leese talks us by photographing the zine: 

“Kiko in Heaven is a collaboration between myself, Kiko Mizuhara and Heaven by Marc Jacobs. Moving into Kiko’s world, the photographs inform an intimate story of Kiko simply as she is. Exploring Tokyo and her favorite locations, surrounded by her favorite issues and folks, we get to expertise a bit slice of Kiko’s heaven.

“I’ve been working with Heaven and Ava [Nirui] – who’s the artistic director on the model – for just a few years, and she or he’s at all times trusted me and given me numerous artistic freedom. She requested me if I would be fascinated with making a zine for Heaven and that’s  once I dreamed up the concept for the mission. I additionally at all times wished to work with Kiko. [She’s] an icon. She’s tremendous proficient and lovely. However really what I beloved probably the most about attending to know her, is how all the way down to earth and funky she is. It felt easy working along with her. 

“We see her embody totally different characters by her work on a regular basis, so I wished to attempt to seize the actual Kiko, one thing perhaps folks don’t see usually once they see photos of her, it was necessary that the photographs felt sincere. 

“Earlier than I arrived in Tokyo, we talked about how we wished the images to be a snippet of her on a regular basis life, and an perception into her favorite locations, so we had a tough plan. I stayed along with her, and shot the mission over 4 days. One of many days, we took the prepare to the seaside in Izu and stayed along with her buddy Eiji. We slept on his tatami mat flooring and obtained up and went to the seashores. She picked this place because it’s certainly one of her favorite diving spots, which can also be why we included a few of her gorgeous diving photos within the zine! My favorite one being of the coral giving start, which solely occurs yearly on the complete moon. 

“One other day we labored along with her proficient pals Rie, Sakie and Tomoya at her home experimenting with totally different magnificence seems. The remainder of the time we had been at her residence, cosying up along with her cat Ciccio, or exploring town. Largely, it was a really ‘docu-style’ method of working, documenting as we went, and repeatedly bouncing concepts off one another. It was necessary it wasn’t too deliberate and that it felt sincere.”

Kiko in Heaven launches on October 25. Buy your copy right here.