Rapper kicks off New York fashion week with launch of Yeezy Boost trainers with Adidas and debuts new song from forthcoming album.
Credit: The Guardian
Kanye West: creative genius, chump or both? Days after setting the pop world up in arms at the Grammy awards by protesting that Beyoncé should have won the best album award instead of Beck, the rapper made another attempt to realise his ambition of being taken seriously as a fashion designer as well as a musician.
Having debuted a collection in October 2011 that was savaged by critics, West has since complained that he has been shut out of the fashion world. In a memorable rant in 2013, he claimed to have “brought the leather jogging pant six years ago to Fendi, and they said no.”
Despite this, West’s collection with Adidas Originals, which showed on the first day of New York fashion week, was thronged with the fashion press, from American Vogue editor Anna Wintour down. Wintour sat poker-faced on the front row next to West’s wife Kim Kardashian and their daughter North, who added some wails to the pre-show atmosphere.
Credit: The Guardian
The show took place in an industrial space on Manhattan by the Hudson River. In a dimly-lit room, 50 models – including Kim Kardashian’s younger sister Kylie Jenner – were stood in rows. wearing clothes ranging from oversized camouflage parkas for the men to white body-stockings for the women. The footwear, the collection’s biggest selling point, ranged from grey suede knee-high boots to high-tops with a wide band of elastic over the toes.
The show began with a taped monologue by West in which he said: “I want people to feel like it’s OK to create and follow their dreams are and not feel boxed in – I want people to feel that awesome is possible. There’s a lack of creativity in every field because people are afraid. As an artist in this room, we can do whatever we want.”
As the lights went up and unearthly synthesiser sounds filled the air, the models started to file forward, the front row walking the perimeter of the room. Some of the clothes were discernibly influenced by designers like Rick Owens, and particularly Raf Simons: over Christmas, West was photographed in a vintage camouflage bomber jacket from Simons’s Autumn/Winter 2001 collection. Not that it seemed to bother the clutch of celebrities West had amassed to see the show, including Jay Z, Beyoncé, Rihanna and Justin Bieber.
Credit: The Guardian
Halfway through, a bassline kicked in, rattling the benches on which the audience was sat, and a brand new West song started. Called Wolves, it’s a sombre but turbo-powered pop song with West singing rather than rapping, made with Sia and the Chicago rapper Vic Mensa.
The song’s quality changed the atmosphere in the room, especially as Jay Z and Beyoncé started to dance in their seats. Whether or not the fashion world felt more well-disposed to West’s ambitions by the show’s climax, he got warm applause as he bounded through the models, dressed in regulation fashion black. On Twitter however, the talk was about the song rather than the shoes.
Source: The Guardian