14 DAY TRIAL // If you’re organizing an event and you invite Kanye West to attend, you can expect him to hijack attention, especially if you also offer him a platform to speak on. The other day, the rapper presented the Fashion Innovator of the Year Award at the Daily Front Row’s inaugural Fashion Los Angeles Awards – and did not disappoint.
In between saying that fashion could literally save the world, he apologized to all the other presenters who would come after him because he wanted to have the longest speech, and revealed why he never smiled in photos. Well, at least he apologized, didn’t he?
Smiling just isn’t cool
Kanye West is famous for a lot of things, as Yahoo! Style points out, from his genius in music, to his initial, unfortunate forays into designing fashion, and his marriage to reality star Kim Kardashian. He is also very famous for having a huge ego, to the point where celebrity pundits say he always needs two private jets to travel from point A to point B: one for himself and the other for his ego.
That ego came out in his speech at the fashion event, which, of course, he made it all about himself, by explaining why he didn’t smile in paparazzi or studio photos.
You might not know it because you’ve been doing it all along, but smiling is quite an uncool and un-regal thing to do, he said. He came to this conclusion after stumbling onto a 19th century book in a flea market in Paris.
“I looked at all these people’s photos in it and it looked so regal. And their outfits were incredible, and they weren’t smiling. People are not smiling, ’cause it just wouldn’t look as cool,” Kanye said.
Kanye has been getting a lot of heat online for his obvious refusal to smile in photos, which has been interpreted to mean that he’s “high fashion” now, and as such, he must look like he’s miserable at all times.
Next time someone thinks of criticizing him for that, they should remember that smiling simply wouldn’t look cool.
Kim doesn’t smile either, but for other reasons
Kim Kardashian doesn’t smile either, but not because she wants to look regal; or at least, that’s not the reason she gives for it. Perhaps constantly plagued by questions of “why so miserable?,” justified by the fact that she was never the kind not to smile for a photo before meeting Kanye, Kim offered an explanation that was as ridiculous as it was mocked online.
She makes it a point to smile and laugh as rarely as possible because they both cause wrinkles.
This should have been in line with her claim that she hasn’t gotten any kind of work done on her face and she doesn’t do fillers and Botox regularly, despite photographic evidence that would suggest, if not actually prove, the contrary.