Many years ago, I was at a trade show in Italy and I was chatting with one of the people involved in the organization. We were having a casual chat and, suddenly, the topic swiftly changed to fashion reporting. My interlocutor lowered her voice and told me that I was sometimes too critical, harsh and that I dared to say the truth in my features, then proceeded to mention me a journalist - a man - who got more assignments than me because he kept quieter. I nodded, pretended I had an appointment, politely said goodbye and left. To be honest, that incident didn't reveal me anything new about fashion: we all know that in this industry there are "polite" boundaries and that you will never see on glossy publications a prominent designer being attacked for being a copycat or for having been lazy in their latest collection. There's money involved and adverts you may lose if you say something bad, so, when something is not that convincing, reviews are strategically shortened, words become banal and borrowed inspiration are simply silenced.
But maybe things will change after this edition of Paris Fashion Week and for this we should indirectly thank Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.
After opening Demna Gvasalia's Balenciaga show in a security outfit that engulfed his body in a rather grotesque and ridiculous way (yes, let me be harsh, disrespectful, but honest as well…), the rapper announced he was launching his YZYSZN9 collection in Paris. The event was hastily organized off-schedule and took place in a vacant building not far from the Arc de Triomphe. Important guests managed to attend, among the others Anna Wintour, John Galliano, Riccardo Tisci, Balenciaga's Demna Gvasalia, and Alexandre Arnault, the chief marketing officer of Tiffany & Company and a son of the LVMH's chairmain and CEO Bernard Arnault.
Starting late and ending up clashing with other events by smaller brands who had worked harder than Ye, the runway opened with a pre-show rant that, rather than unboxing the collection, was the umpteenth display of erratic public behavior from the rapper. In the speech, Ye attacked Gap that recently ended its partnership with Yeezy, then he called Bernard Arnault his "new Drake", that is a competitor and enemy. According to Ye, Arnault offered him a deal for the Kanye West line after Yeezy 1, then, three months after that, he pulled on the deal (on Instagram, Ye also accused Arnault of having killed his friend, the late Virgil Abloh, creative director for menswear at Louis Vuitton and of LVMH trying to kill all his friends...). Ye also declared, "You can't manage me. This is an unmanageable situation."
That the situation was unmanageable was clear from his T-shirt with an image of Pope John Paul II and the words "Seguiremos tu ejemplo" (We will follow your example) on the front, and the slogan "White Lives Matter" on the back . The Anti-Defamation League called this sentence hate speech and attributed it to white supremacists who started using it in 2015 in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Candace Owens, American conservative influencer, commentator and climate change denier, was in the audience and wore a matching shirt. While it may have aligned with West's previous puzzling comments and views including calling slavery a "choice", controversially supporting Donald Trump and wearing a MAGA hat, the shirt sparked outrage on the Internet.
Ye refused to elaborate the message, saying that the shirt said it all, but, while the wider implications were serious, wearing it in the fashion context was a further moment of confusion as it took ages, the Battle of Versailles and further battles to see Black models and diversity on the runway.
Sadly, the offending garment was also on the runway, donned by Selah Marley, the daughter of Lauryn Hill and granddaughter of Bob Marley (Matthew M. Williams, the Givenchy designer who worked with Ye/West earlier on in his career; and Naomi Campbell also walked in the show).
Created with Shayne Oliver, founder of Hood By Air, Yeezy (or, as Ye rebranded, it as YZY) season nine included garments with no buttons, zips or snaps.
Looking like a crossover between Demna Gvasalia's Balenciaga, Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga and Rick Owens's collections (Michéle Lamy, Owens's wife actually modelled one design), dystopian and apocalyptic, overshadowed by the horrid "White Lives Matter" design, Yzy season nine should be filed under the label "aggravated miserabilism". The collection included indeed bodysuits with face-covering hoods, oversized puffer jackets and black quilted rain ponchos, all matched with knee high rubber boots of the kind you may see in an abattoir, in an industrial plant or a nuclear power station. It remains a mystery while there wasn't a mutiny among models who had to wear the designs, especially the offending shirts.
Vogue contributing editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson was brave enough to call the incident "indefensible behavior" and "incredibly irresponsible and dangerous act" on her Instagram stories. Later she added, "there is no excuse, there is no art here," but she was attacked by Ye who mocked the fashion journalist's personal style, stating she is "not a fashion person" (he then erased the post and stated he had gone to dinner with Karefa-Johnson to clarify the situation).
Vogue also condemned Ye's actions, stating on Instagram: "Vogue stands with Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, our global fashion editor at large and longtime contributor. She was personally targeted and bullied. It's unacceptable. Now more than ever, voices like hers are needed. In a private meeting with Ye today she once again spoke her truth in a way she felt best, on her terms."
You may argue Ye's behavior is the result of his unstable mental health, but, after being banned from performing at Coachella and at the Grammy Awards (due to his "concerning online behavior" in this case), maybe Ye should also be banned from fashion weeks. There shouldn't actually be any space for this sort of behavior in any kind of industry, not just in music or fashion.
But let's hope that the Parisian incident becomes a wake up call for fashion commentators as well - we need to reshift the attention on clothes (and on brands/designers working hard) rather than on vapid (and in this case ranting) celebrities, and have the guts to condemn rather than condone, after all, it is better to lose your front row invitation than your integrity.
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