Opening Cermony founders Carol Lim and Humberto Leon
On a trip to Brazil in 2003, Opening Ceremony founders Humberto Leon and Carol Lim met up for dinner after a day of shopping in São Paulo. Leon dressed in a newly acquired fruit-patterned tracksuit, while Lim wore multicolored pom-poms in her hair. “We looked at each other and laughed,” Leon says. “When we travel, we get so into the look of a city’s people that we adapt ourselves to the environment.”
A shared obsession with travel inspired the boutique that longtime friends Leon and Lim, both 36, opened at the edge of Manhattan’s Chinatown 10 summers ago. Taking a different national theme each year, Opening Ceremony has put a spotlight on designers from Brazil to Germany alongside the boutique’s own fashion line. But as of 2011, the New York identified pair work in Paris half the year as creative directors of Kenzo, where they’re evolving the storied Japanese fashion brand’s signature floral prints. Their January pre-fall collection, for example, eschewed flowers in favor of flower-like geometric patterns. “The brand was almost suffocating from the florals,” says Leon. “We also wanted to touch upon elements of tailoring, which Kenzo really had a big moment with midcareer.”
Having collaborated over the years with famous friends such as actress Chloë Sevigny and director Spike Jonze, Leon and Lim are teaming with Adidas to create a 100-piece clothing-and-shoe collection in honor of the Summer Olympics in London — the ideal assignment for a duo who named their company after the Games’ festive prologue. “Not only is 2012 an Olympics year, it’s also the 10th anniversary of our store,” Leon says. “And it marks Carol and me spending half of our lives together — and I’m proud of it.”